Kidney broker gets 2 1/2 year sentence TRENTON, N.J., July 12 (UPI) -- A New Jersey judge sentenced a black market kidney broker to two and a half years in prison and ordered him to forfeit $420,000 he'd made in the deals. Levy Itzhak Rosenbaum, of New York, faced a potential 20 years in prison for arranging the transplants, but U.S. District Judge Anne Thompson said Wednesday it was clear he led a charitable life before getting caught up in crime, The (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger reported. "This is a difficult case; it is not a prototype," Thompson said just before handing down the sentence. Rosenbaum is the first person convicted of brokering illegal kidney transplants for money in the United States, the newspaper said. Beckie Cohen, the daughter of a man who paid $150,000 for a kidney, said Rosenbaum saved her father's life. "As far as I'm concerned, Isaac is a hero," she testified. My father was dying, and the system was failing us. Meanwhile, Elahn Quick, a man who agreed to sell his kidney for $25,000, testified Wednesday he felt victimized when he told his caretaker he was having second thoughts about the arrangement while waiting for his surgery in a Minnesota hospital. "He was holding my hand, and he said it was not too late, but before I finished the conversation, I was gone," Quick said. When he woke up, the surgery was done and the caretaker had disappeared. "I prayed on it, and I felt like I was victimized," Quick said.