N.Y. man gets 2.5 years for illegal kidney sales

Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, of Brooklyn, N.Y, arrives for his sentencing in Trenton, N.J., Wednesday, July, 11, 2012. / AP Photo

(CBS/AP) TRENTON, N.J. - A New York City man has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison in a case prosecutors say is the first ever federal conviction for illegally selling human kidneys for profit.

Levy Izhak Rosenbaum showed no immediate reaction to the sentence Wednesday in Trenton federal court.

The 61-year-old Brooklyn resident pleaded guilty last October to brokering three illegal kidney transplants for New Jersey-based customers in exchange for payments of $120,000 or more.

Prosecutors allege Rosenbaum made millions by exploiting desperate recipients and paying donors a paltry sum.

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Rosenbaum admitted wrongdoing Wednesday but said his motives were altruistic. Several people testified that he'd helped saved their lives.

He was arrested in July 2009 in a sweeping federal case that became the largest corruption sting in New Jersey history.

Critics and experts on organ trafficking say many U.S. hospitals do not have vigorous enough procedures for looking into the source of the organs they transplant because such operations are lucrative.

U.S. transplant centers are mostly free to write their own rules for screening donors. The questions they ask vary widely. Some hospitals require long waiting periods; others don't.

Under U.S. law, it is illegal to knowingly buy or sell organs for transplant. The practice is illegal just about everywhere in the world.

But demand for kidneys outstrips the supply, with 4,540 people dying in the U.S. last year while waiting for a kidney, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. As a result, there is a thriving black market for kidneys around the world.

[Alexandre-NZ]

He can earn high in bresil exchanging kidneys by pinga or soccer balls!

[owldog]

"Who lotta [mainstream media] filtering going on" here with this story, like where did the kidneys come from? When I hear Jewish Maffioso, I think: right wing fundamentalist Zionism; indigenous Palestinians; and Israel.

[Truth_Bee_Told]

Funny that they call it an "illegal" kidney sale...is there any other kind of kidney sale?

[tvwatcher5345]

was israel getting these organs? the article does not say.

[jonnyooh]

In a related issue, nothing was done to a passel of Wall Street crooks who caused the worst intentional economic meltdown in world history, and made really serious money doing it.

[owldog]

I'm all for the 99% but HTF is this story related ? If you are insinuating an ethnic link, that would be a thinly-veiled hate message.

As a segregated culture in Europe, Jewish people got into banking and finance in the middle ages, because it was one of the few things Christians would let them do for a living, while Christians were forbidden to loan money for interest by religious law. It also came in handy with import-export business transactions something Jewish people did well because of Rabbinical networking and regulation.

[jonnyooh]

My comment was about somebody going to prison for a crime that netted him a few thousand dollars, when the people who stole billions went free. If you don't get the connection, you must be one of the Fox News zombies that can't stay away from the CBS comment board. On second thought, you don't seem smart enough to be a Foxbot moron. Oh and I'm not interested in your history of the Jewish people. If I become curious about it, I will read a book on the subject.

[audemus]

What is the price paid to people who donate organs ? How many doctors profit from transplanting organs ?

[alisonweir]

I wonder why the Israel connection is missing from this article? For this aspect please see "Israeli Organ Trafficking and Theft: From Moldova to Palestine" and "Israeli Organ Harvesting
The New 'Blood Libel'?" at the If Americans Knew website.