Early one morning in September 2024, two teams of F.B.I. agents descended simultaneously on a pair of homes in Orange County, New York. The agents arrived to serve arrest warrants on Mout’z Soudani, 76, a local real estate investor, and Stewart Rosenwasser, 72, a prominent former judge and recently retired county prosecutor. The two were accused in a conspiracy case.
Mr. Soudani surrendered. Mr. Rosenwasser did not. Instead, he barricaded himself inside his home in Campbell Hall, N.Y., a suburb 65 miles north of Manhattan, exchanging gunfire with F.B.I. agents, according to local news reports, which cited an unnamed source in local law enforcement. It was all over the news: He turned his gun on himself and took his own life.
The burst of violence shocked members of the community, who knew Mr. Soudani as a respected former restaurateur and Mr. Rosenwasser as a fixture in county law enforcement dating back decades.
But the allegations that precipitated the F.B.I.’s involvement reveal a darker mystery.
At the center of the controversy is Mr. Soudani’s 65-year-old sister, Eman. In a lawsuit filed in federal court in November 2023, she claimed that her brother raped, beat and controlled her for 45 years. Her suit, and a counterclaim by her brother, uncovered bank and phone records documenting a scheme in which Mr. Rosenwasser used his power as a high-ranking prosecutor to travel 1,800 miles outside his jurisdiction to personally ensure the arrest of Ms. Soudani — based on her brother’s claim that she had stolen half a million dollars from him — and return her to her brother’s control. In exchange, the F.B.I. says, Mr. Soudani paid the prosecutor approximately $63,000.
Now the Soudani siblings are caught in a web of allegations and dueling lawsuits. Mr. Soudani faces criminal charges in federal court, including bribery and making interstate threats of violence. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
This account is based on court filings, police records, newspaper coverage of the Soudani family dating back to the 1970s, and interviews with Ms. Soudani; her son, Martin; and Mr. Soudani’s son Marty.
