Borough Park Shomrim Member Gets Lighter-Than-Expected Sentence

After getting his day in court, Alex “Shaya” Lichtenstein, who was found guilty of bribing cops for speedy gun permits, has been sentenced to 32 months in jail, slapped with a $20,000 fine, and ordered to alcohol addiction treatment, a federal judge decided on Thursday.

The jail sentence — which could have been six years after his lawyer brokered a plea deal with prosecutors — was lower-than-expected because of Lichtenstein’s community service history, said Manhattan Federal Judge Sidney Stein.

Lichtenstein, a member of Borough Park’s Jewish community safety patrol, was arrested in April 2016 and charged with bribery and conspiracy for paying members of the NYPD to “expedite” gun permit requests, which he then sold for a profit in Borough Park.

After losing his connection at NYPD’s License Division following a crackdown, Lichtenstein was recorded trying to bribe another officer, offering him $6,000 per gun license — which he dubbed “lunch money.” He allegedly bragged to the officer about 150 gun licenses he obtained through the scheme. Troves of his own recordings were uncovered by investigators, reports the Post.

Lichtenstein pleaded guilty, and was sentenced on Thursday, March 17.

Lichtenstein’s lawyer, Richard Finkel, used Lichtenstein’s position in the Borough Park Shomrim patrol to lessen the sentence, arguing that the six-year sentencing guidelines sentencing guidelines “cannot apply to a person like Lichtenstein,” reports the New York Daily News.

Lichtenstein’s 2016 arrest sparked a massive NYPD bribery scandal that implicated a slew of South Brooklyn cops and Sgt. David Villanueva of the gun licensing division in a criminal complaint released last June.