Rabbi and wife defrauded state

Rabbi Edgar Gluck of Brooklyn was dropped from the state police payroll when the report was issued, state police spokesman Sgt. Glenn Miner said Monday. Gluck served as a special assistant and later consultant to the state police since 1984, making $40,000 a year, according to a report Monday in the New York Sun.

The findings have been referred to the state attorney general's office for further investigation. The behavior could constitute a felony, according to the inspector general's report.

The investigation began when Gluck's wife, Frieda Gluck, stayed in her Brooklyn home even after her $68,000-a-year state job as an assistant secretary was relocated to Albany. Since 1998, she proceeded to charge mileage in her Lexus and other cars as well as hotel expenses while she and her husband stayed in hotels and later in their Albany apartment, according to the state report.

Some of their fraudulent filings sought redundant reimbursement for expenses by the couple on the same trip, in the same car and in the same hotel, the report stated. Frieda Gluck has also been fired, according to the newspaper.

Gluck responded to tragedies and other emergencies involving the Orthodox Jewish community, acting as a liaison for state police. His wife worked for the state Workers' Compensation Board.