Two masked gunmen shot and killed a New Jersey man as they attempted to rob an unlicensed “Las Vegas Night” at an Orthodox synagogue in Queens, N.Y., according to police.
Michael Rubin, 49, of Freehold, N.J., was shot in the chest at 1:30 a.m. Monday, one half-hour after gambling had ended at Young Israel of New Hyde Park, near Bellrose, N.Y., police said. He later died at Long Island Jewish-Hillside Medical Center.
Rubin, a former member of the synagogue, was one of approximately 15 or 20 workers cleaning up after the event.
According to Lt. Kevin Heffernan of the 105th Precinct in Queens, Rubin had just been paid and was shot either while trying to close the door on the two intruders or when caught in the entrance as they forced their way in.
Rubin managed to run down the steps to a storage room before collapsing. The gunmen, meanwhile, grabbed and robbed two other workers, a male and a female. In the ensuing panic, said Heffernan, the remaining workers fled the synagogue.
Heffernan said police could not determine how much money, if any, was taken. “People are not 100 percent forthcoming about how much money they’re making” running gambling fundraisers, he said.
“We don’t know if (the gunmen) got the proceeds from the Las Vegas Night or not,” Heffernan said. “There’s some confusion who ended up with it.”
Rabbi Meyer Belitsky, the synagogue’s rabbi, was reportedly out of town Tuesday, and no one else was available for comment.
Heffernan said the synagogue had been licensed to run games of chance only through June of 1986. He said the congregation rents the synagogue hall to an outside contractor who conducts the games Wednesday and Sunday nights.
Rabbi Ephraim Sturm, executive vice president of the National Council of Young Israel, said the New Hyde Park synagogue is the only congregation within the 280-member Young Israel movement that still holds Las Vegas Nights.
“It’s certainly not encouraged by the movement, and we didn’t even know about this kind of thing” until accounts of the shooting appeared in the newspapers, he said.
A police spokesman said investigators into the shooting had little to go on at the present time. “It’s going to be tough” to solve, he said.
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