It was all over for Stewart Rosenwasser when the FBI showed up at his door. They were there because he’d been accused of taking bribes. He was both a retired judge and a former prosecutor. So, he knew exactly what happens to people from law enforcement when they end up on the wrong side of the bars. Since he knew he was guilty, he took the easy way out for everyone involved, except the clean-up crew.
When the FBI arrived
Reports from Campbell Hall indicate that a “former prosecutor and retired judge in Orange County, New York, killed himself Tuesday as the FBI arrived at his home to arrest him.”
When agents of the Federal Bureau of Instigation rang his bell, “there was an exchange of gunfire.” The bureau wasn’t expecting that.
Authorities were there to arrest Rosenwasser “as part of a corruption case.” Police told ABC that he “had been under investigation for taking bribes.”
The FBI issued a statement about what happened. As usual, it doesn’t say much but takes a whole paragraph to do it.
“The FBI is reviewing an agent-involved shooting that occurred earlier this morning in Campbell Hall, NY.” They go on to note the bureau “takes all shooting incidents involving our agents seriously.”
Without saying a word about details, they reiterate their cone of silence policy. “The shooting incident is under review by the FBI’s Inspection Division. As this is an ongoing matter, we have no further details to provide.”
Paid to prosecute
The way Rosenwasser probably justified to himself what he did is the fact that he was bribed to do something he would have done anyway. It was really more of a “tip.” That’s not how the FBI sees it.
The retired judge was “charged with abusing the authority of his job at the Orange County DA’s office by accepting $63,000 in bribe payments.” He was bribed for something a little different from what most officials are bribed for. Instead of looking the other way, he was allegedly paid to look in a specific direction.
Rosenwasser, the FBI insists, was bribed “to investigate and prosecute two individuals.” Not just any individuals. They weren’t business rivals, either.
The victims “are related to the man who allegedly paid the bribes, Mout’z Soudani.” Federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York “declined to comment.”
It’s been separately reported that Mout’z bribed Rosenwasser to do his job after $1.9 million was allegedly embezzled from him in 2022 and 2023. “Eman Soudani, 63, and her son, Martin Soudani, 38, have laid out a detailed timeline in court filings.”
They also have “copies of checks and text messages they say illustrate a bribery scheme involving Rosenwasser and the complainant in the criminal case, 75-year-old Mout’z ‘Marty’ Soudani — Eman’s brother and Martin’s uncle, whom they formerly lived with.” The FBI didn’t care if they stole the old man’s money or not, only that the prosecutor was paid privately to put them in prison for it.
