Jacob The Jeweler Gets 2 1/2 years

Jacob "The Jeweler" Arabov who has made custom jewelry for pretty much every major hip hop artist, Rudy Giuliani, and Bono has been sentenced to 30 months in Detroit today for lying to investigators about a multistate drug ring.


According to The Associated Press, Arabov was given seven months off his potential three-year-plus sentence for his extensive charity work. He was also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and forfeit $2 million to the government.

He was originally arrested in June 2006 in his Upper East Side store for conspiring to launder about $270 million in drug profits for a Detroit-based drug ring called the Black Mafia Family. But the charges were later dropped as part of a plea deal.

Mr. Arabov told reporters: "I feel ashamed that I broke the laws of this country, a country that has been so good for me. I will carry this shame for the rest of my life."


He was among 40 people indicted in the scheme orchestrated by the Black Mafia Family, which ran drugs out of Detroit beginning in the 1990s.