Come for the Strippers, Stay for the Duplicity
(“Summer Obsession,” Forensic Files)
Craig Rabinowitz had a baby daughter, a lawyer wife, and a house in a wealthy suburban area of Philadelphia.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have a career of his own. So he fabricated one, as an entrepreneur who imported and sold surgical gloves wholesale.
Slippery heel. His business, C&C Supplies Inc., never existed, but Rabinowitz fooled just about everyone into thinking it did.
The 34-year-old possessed enough charm and credibility to entice friends and relatives to invest a total of about $800,000 into his faux venture.
His in-laws, Anne and Louis Newman, used their own house as collateral to secure a $96,500 loan he said he needed for his business, according to a May 7, 1997, Philadelphia Inquirer story.
He needed the money, especially once he became a father.
A baby, a pay cut. After giving birth to the couple’s daughter, Stefanie Rabinowitz switched to part-time status at the law firm where she worked, taking a pay cut to $33,000 a year, according to a Washington Post article by reporter Debbie Goldberg.
That wasn’t enough to pay off the couple’s $300,000 mortgage debt or buy a sufficient sum of Delilah’s Dollars — vouchers used to pay exotic dancers, aka strippers — to hold the attention of Shannon Reinert, with whom Craig Rabinowitz became infatuated after seeing her perform at Delilah’s Den.
Last week’s post suggested that the stripper factor contributed in large part to the popularity of “Summer Obsession,” the Forensic Files episode about the Rabinowitz murder.
Guilty displeasure. It’s not just the male viewers who like watching the parade of peroxide and silicone.
Many women feel compelled to compare and contrast themselves with the 1 percent who look commercially attractive in G-strings.
In the case of “Summer Obsession,” however, the opportunity to look at women rubbing themselves against poles may be what attracted so many viewers, but it’s the double-life aspect of Craig Rabinowitz’s story that has kept them interested.
In a bid to neatly rid himself of his debts and marriage and also finance his pursuit of Reinert (known as “Summer” at Delilah’s Den), Rabinowitz came up with a murder-insurance fraud scheme.
Arrogant adulterer. Up until then, he had managed to compartmentalize his thieving and lecherous behavior well enough to avoid raising suspicion among his family and friends.
Rabinowitz garnered so much success with his duplicity that he must have felt invincible on April 29, 1997.
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That night, he gave his wife a beverage laced with Ambien, waited until she fell unconscious, and drowned her in the tub. He then called 911 and reported finding her unresponsive.
The staged scene looked enough like an accidental drowning to satisfy the authorities at first.
In keeping with Jewish custom, Craig and his late wife’s parents, the Newmans, planned to bury Stefanie Rabinowitz by the next sundown.
Intriguing find. Fortunately, the coroner insisted on a delay in order to do a full autopsy. Forensic pathologist Ian Hood found petechial hemorrhages and other signs that Stefanie was strangled and held underwater until she died.
After searching the couple’s home, police found a crawlspace containing some receipts and handwritten ledgers. With the help of a forensic accountant, detectives used the crude evidence to uncover Rabinowitz’s secret life.
Ricardo Zayas, CPA, determined that Rabinowitz was spending up to $3,000 a week at Delilah’s. He found that C&C Supplies Inc. never bought or sold gloves, or did anything other than help its “owner” dupe investors.
No explaining it away. Rabinowitz, it turned out, had been placating investors by giving them small payments from money newer investors lent him. He was running a Ponzi scheme.
And his investors were expecting him to give them larger payments pronto.
Rabinowitz wanted to use Stefanie’s $1.5 million life insurance payout to make his investors whole, pay off his mortgage, and underwrite his relationship with Summer.
Confronted with the extensive evidence against him, Rabinowitz confessed to the murder and financial crimes, ending his double life and starting a singular one as an inmate with no possibility of parole.— RR
Update: Read Part 3
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What happened to the daughter? How is she supposed to process her father’s behavior?
Melissa, I believe the maternal grandparents ended up with her. Here’s a story about the daughter that was written soon after her mother’s murder:
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1997-05-27/news/9705260431_1_rabinowitz-insurance-policy-stefanie
She’d be around 20 years old now and I would imagine she’s changed her last name.
She’s a pediatrician now. She uses her mother’s maiden name of Newman.
So glad to get an update on the daughter — many thanks! She must have had some great influences somewhere along her path to adulthood.
What a no good evil scumbag pos loser…had it all and stole from friends and family to finance a lifestyle with a dancer.
Killed his baby mother. All that money all that time away from his family. He contributed nothing to his family. Idiots think they’re going to outsmart police and collect millions without arousing scrutiny.
Rot u pos…RIP to his ex wife
Amen!
How is that possible since she was one when the murder occurred in 1997? What is your source?
No she’s following in her mother’s footsteps.
Yes, I think you are correct. I’m pretty sure she goes to Rutgers law school.
She’s not a pediatrician *yet* per my Google findings. She was a third year pediatric oncology fellow in 2019 — fellowships are usually 4 years. So she should be done with that soon and then I believe she would be an actual doctor.
I believe you are incorrect. I’m pretty sure she is currently in law school at Rutgers, following in her mom’s steps.
For some reason, I’m remembering the old joke, “The punishment for bigamy is two wives.” Not that it’s directly relevant, but tangentially, it’s seeming like life insurance is dangerous, and the institution of marriage is worse. OTOH, I suppose it’s never anything personal, when people marry a psychopath.
It is great to have someone like you following up on the stories that both interested and repulsed us. I’m looking forward to next week’s article on the forensic accountant’s methods.
It was really a clumsy attempt. Did he really think there would be no autopsy?
Possibly because the family is Jewish and they prefer burial without embalming and to be buried within a certain time frame after death. He probably thought they would buy the cause of death he set up and quickly get her underground. Most criminals underestimate or do not factor in coroners.
Thank God they do so!!! They are so stupid that they think they are going to cheat on the police, but fortunately,this is hardly ever the case…
Well written!
http://inmatelocator.cor.pa.gov/#/Result he’s still behind bars!!!
Many thanks for writing in about this – I’ll update the story with his mugshot.
This is so sad. She should have known he was a conartist. How could you marry her and claim to love her and kill her for a fantasy. I wish his wife would have known he was living a double life. Well that’s why you marry someone educated and with morals. She should have smelled the scent of another wonen. This was just so sad.
The problem with con artists is they literally CON people. Stop victim blaming!
“She should have known he was a con-artist.” Why? You can’t know she was stupid or naive, and he conned many close to him. Indeed, conning was something he was clearly good at – but not murder. Some people are capable of considerable, evil and tragic, duplicity, which does not reflect on the intelligence of their victims but rather their reasonable trust and humanity. Furthermore, since having a child with him, that may have caused her to give him the benefit of any doubt, since a reasonable mother would not lightly wish to jettison her child’s father.
You don’t strike me as someone that values education…
“She should have known he was a conartist.” Well, more than 62 million people voted for the current president, so …
ain’t that the truth
I wonder if Craig had ever once worked any real jobs or was he con artist before his marriage to Stefanie? I feel like he may have other dark secrets that we don’t know about.
I mean you’d have to be somewhat intelligent and motivated to con people into a Ponzi scheme. It begs the question, what line of work was he in to hone his craft?
I just saw this episode on Forensic Files. Being the typical dude, i would like to know whatever happen to the stripper, Shannon Reinert? She was a single mom (24 yro?) with a kid at the time?
According to this article:
https://www.mail-archive.com/law-issues@mylist.net/msg02036.html
Written c a year after the murder, R was trying to contact Ms R to keep the relationship going but she rebutted, changed her stage name and moved – which is hardly surprising. Pushing 50, it can be assumed the exotic dancing’s probably behind her these days! He’s 57.
I remember listening to a podcast about this case. What I found particularly tragic was that when Craig & Stephanie first met, she actually had no interest in him and only reluctantly agreed to a date that she was initially going to cancel (he went after her, and quite doggedly too). Her parents found out she was going to cancel the date, and suggested “at least give him a chance Stephanie”. The fact that they didn’t let her cancel that date probably haunts them to this day.