Jack Abramoff was just convicted to 6 years in prison for fraud. When the story broke a little while back that he was under investigation and indicted, it made waves in the frum Jewish community. Everybody spoke about the great Chillul Hashem he caused. All the pictures of him going into and out of court showed him in a black hat (yeshiva style). People were upset that he is making us all look bad. He is giving the perception that it is ok to steal as long as he wears his black hat, etc...

In the latest news breaks, I noticed something interesting. In all the pictures I saw of Jack Abramoff after the sentencing, he was no longer wearing his black hat. This time around he was wearing a baseball cap. Did he change his hat on purpose, so as not to cause people to cast aspersions on people in black hats? So he would not look "frummer than thou"?

Did his community/Rabbi request of him to change his hat? I saw articles and emails that went out from members of his community asking people to write letters on his behalf to the judge, describing how helpful he is to the community and how family oriented he is, etc.. in order to sway the judge to lighten the sentence. Did they request of him in return to change is hat?