“I would like to express my gratitude to the court and to the justice system for favoring a prison sentence and holding him to the highest standard that the law will permit in this case,” said Hannah Kaye, addressing the court shortly before sentencing. “We were bracing ourselves for a different result.”

Yisroel Goldstein got his first taste of grift in the 1980s, when he helped a congregant at his fledgling Chabad synagogue write off a sham donation — in exchange for a tenth of the amount claimed, a tax fraud authorities referred to as the ‘90-10’ scheme.

In the ensuing decades, as Chabad of Poway graduated from a tiny storefront to one of the largest synagogues in the San Diego area, the rabbi’s schemes enfolded more of his community, and grew more complex.

In one, Goldstein exploited Friendship Circle of San Diego, an affiliated nonprofit that serves disabled people and their families, to loot corporate donation-matching programs. People would donate money to Friendship Circle, the corporations would match it. The rabbi then refunded the original donation to the individual and kept the matching donation for himself.

In another scam, he used fake invoices to obtain federal emergency grants for earthquake damage that never occurred.

Later, he secured government funding to bolster the synagogue’s security, but never made the upgrades. That failure loomed larger after April 27, 2019, when a man steeped in white nationalist ideology walked in the front door with an assault rifle and opened fire, killing Kaye, 61, and injuring three others, including Goldstein, who lost a finger in the attack.

By then, Goldstein was already cooperating with a joint FBI and IRS investigation into a conspiracy that involved dozens of people, many of them his congregants, and which included his brother Mendel Goldstein, who lives in Brooklyn.

A family of a different victim is now suing Goldstein, Chabad of Poway and Chabad of California over alleged misappropriation of the security funds. The shooter, John T. Earnest, was sentenced to life in federal prison in December.

In total, Goldstein admitted to signing off on about $6.2 million in false tax deductions in the 90-10 scheme; $875,000 in grant fraud, and $134,000 via donation matching.

Addressing Bashant and the packed courtroom from prepared remarks Tuesday, Goldstein said, “Today, I stand here in shame. My good name and all the positive I’ve done and planted over decades are destroyed due to my terrible deeds.”

Goldstein became the 11th defendant sentenced as part of the conspiracy, but with another dozen it seems unlikely he will be the last. The focus of the prosecution now turns to two mystery defendants described in Goldstein indictments as religious leaders based in San Diego but identified only by their initials. One of them is identified as Y.F.