Sephardic Jews???

If my memory serves me right there is a Sephardic community in New York State. They were in the news a couple of years ago when they tried to have their town declared a religeous community and therefore not subject to State Taxes. I forget the details of the case but the interesting part of the story is that the entire town is made up of Sephardic Jews.
Sephardic Jews are heavily involved in the diamond trade often becoming easy targets for robbers as they carry thousands of dollars in gems on their person, they are easily identifiable from their mode of dress.