Rabbi Yehuda Friedlander
(AKA: Yehudah Friedlander, Yehuda Leib Friedlander, Leib Friedlander)
 |
| Rabbi Yehuda Leib Friedlander (2012) Convicted Sex Offender |
Williamsburg, NY
Monticello, NY
Assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald - Borough Park, NY
Congregation Tuldos Yakov Yosef - Brooklyn, NY
Melbourne, Australia
Los Angeles, CA
Convicted of molesting a 15 year old on a 1995 plane flight from Australia to LA.
Friedlander was the assistant to the chief rabbi of an Hungarian
Hasidic congregation in Brooklyn, known as the Pupas Rebbe. According
to an F.B.I. affidavit, Rabbi Friedlander sat next to the girl, who was
traveling alone. He groped her breast, put his hand inside her pants
and touched her vagina.
Friedlander was convicted and sentenced to serve 22 months in prison.
Monticello, NY –– Back in 1991, after being charged with another sexual offense against a child, a judge in a Monticello Village Court ordered a six-month
adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, on condition of good
behavior. After six months, the charge was dismissed and the case record
was sealed. At the time Rabbi Friedlander was
working at a yeshiva, yet after being accused of a sexual offence he lost his teaching postiion.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Disclaimer:
Inclusion in this website does not constitute a recommendation or
endorsement. Individuals must decide for themselves if the resources
meet their own personal needs.
Table of Contents:
1995
Table of Contents:
1995
- Hasidic Rabbis Accused of Sexually Abusing Girl (06/02/1995)
- 2 Hasidic Rabbis Accused of Fondling Girl (06/02/1995)
- Two Rabbis Are Charged In Sexual Abuse on a Plane (06/02/1995)
- 2 Rabbis Are Accused of Molesting Girl on Plane (06/02/1995)
- Rabbi, assistant face sex-abuse charges (06/02/1995)
- Rabbis charged with sexual abuse of minor on plane (06/02/1995)
- Rabbi, Associate charged in sex case men accused of groping teen-age girl on flight from Australia (06/02/1995)
- Rabbis accused of molesting girl (06/02/1995)
- Rabbi Accused of Molesting Is Denied Bail (06/03/1995)
- Rabbi's Aide Held On Abuse Charges (06/03/1995)
- 1 Accused Rabbi Will Stay Jailed for Weekend Courts: Judge terms him `a danger' pending bail hearing. He and a colleague, who has returned to New York, are accused of molesting girl on airliner (06/03/1995)
- Rabbi's assistant to remain in jail (06/03/1995)
- Brooklyn Rabbi Is Freed on Bail In Sex Case, but Assistant Is Held (06/03/1995)
- Hassidic rabbi and assistant charged with molestation (06/06/1995)
- Rabbi Refused Bail In Plane Sex Case (06/06/1995)
- Rabbi's Assistant Kept in Jail on Sex Charge Crime: U.S. judge cites `very, very strong' allegations. The Brooklyn man and a Hasidic leader are accused of molesting 15-year-old girl on a flight to Los Angeles (06/07/1995)
- Bail Set for Rabbi In Sex Abuse Case (06/08/1995)
- Bonds posted in molest case (06/08/1995)
- Bond Set in Sex Case of Rabbi's Assistant (06/08/1995)
- Grand jury to hear sexual misconduct case involving rabbis (06/09/1995)
- Grand jury issues indictment of Chasid accused of sex abuse (06/14/1995)
- Rabbi's Aide Indicted in Molestation (06/14/1995)
- Federal child sex charge has local tie (06/16/1995)
- Rabbi's aide indicted in sex attack of girl (06/16/1995)
- Focus on crimes involving religious Jews sparks debate (06/16/1995)
- Rabbi's Aide Pleads Guilty in Sex Charge (11/02/1995)
- Rabbi aide pleads guilty (11/02/1995)
- Rabbi Assistant Says He's Guilty of Sex Charges (11/02/1995)
1996
- 22-Month Sentence For Rabbi's Aide (01/16/1996)
- Teenager Confronts Rabbi at Molestation Sentencing Hearing (01/19/1996)
- Rabbi's assistant jailed for sex abuse (01/20/2006)
- Rabbi's aide imprisoned (01/20/2006)
- Rabbi's Aide Gets 22 Months for Molesting Girl on Flight (01/20/2006)
- Rabbi's assistant gets 22-month term (01/20/2006)
- Rabbi's aide gets 22 months for molestation (01/22/2006)
1997
- UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. YEHUDA P. FRIEDLANDER, Defendant - Appellant. (03/27/1997)
2012
Also see:
- New York Sex Offender Registry (12/16/2012)
Also see:
- Case of Rabbi Yisrael Menachem Grunwald (AKA: Israel Grunwald)
- Case of Rabbi Bernard Freilich
____________________________________________________________________________________
Hasidic Rabbis Accused of Sexually Abusing Girl
Orlando Setinel - June 2, 1995
Two Hasidic rabbis from New York were due to appear in U.S.
District Court on Thursday after being accused of sexually abusing a young girl during a long flight from Australia to the United States. An FBI spokesman said the two were arrested when the plane, which originated in Melbourne, Australia, landed at Los Angeles.
The rabbis were identified as Israel Grunwald and Yehudah Friedlander, both 44.
____________________________________________________________________________________
2 Hasidic Rabbis Accused of Fondling Girl
By Pete Bowles and Joseph A. Gambardello
Los Angeles Times - June 2, 1995
Two Brooklyn rabbis, described by associates as strict followers of the Orthodox practice of avoiding any contact with women, have been charged with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl during a flight from Australia.
Israel Grunwald, the leader of the Borough Park branch of the Pupa Hasidim, and Yehudah Friedlander, his secretary, were arrested by FBI agents when they arrived Wednesday morning at Los Angeles International Airport and were charged with the sexual abuse of a minor and abusive sexual contact on an international flight.
"The accusations are completely, absolutely, without any basis in fact. It's ridiculous," said Mitchell Egers, an attorney for the rabbis.
Rabbi Beryl Freilich of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park called the charges "ridiculous, bizarre, absurd, humiliating," and added: "This is a man who wouldn't talk to a woman, and on a flight with 300 people, all of a sudden they decided to fondle a girl?"
According to the FBI affidavit, the two rabbis, both 44, fondled the girl several times while on a United Airlines flight from Melbourne, Australia. The girl told FBI agents that she repeatedly told the men not to bother her but that she kept her voice low because she was embarrassed. One passenger told agents she was "horrified" when she saw one of the men put his hand under the girl's blanket and "grope" her for five to eight minutes, according to the affidavit.
FBI Agent Mark Van Steenburg said Friedlander, after being advised of his constitutional right to remain silent, said the girl had encouraged him to touch her. "I did it. I shouldn't have done it, but it happened," the agent quoted Friedlander as saying.
U.S. magistrate judge Carolyn Turchin set bail at $10,000 for Grunwald. Friedlander's bail hearing was adjourned until today after confusion arose over the disposition of a 1991 arrest in the Town of Monticello in which he was charged with sexual abuse.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbis accused of molesting girl
Buffalo News - June 2, 1995
A prominent New York City rabbi and his assistant appeared in federal court in Los Angeles on charges that they sexually molested a 15-year-old girl on a plane ride from Australia.
Rabbi Israel Grunwald and Rabbi Yehuda Friedlander, both 44, appeared before a federal magistrate judge there after their Wednesday arrest by airport police at Los Angeles Airport.
"The idea they're doing something wrong under those circumstances, with a plane full of people, in each other's presence, is ridiculous," Mitchell W. Egers, their attorney, said Thursday.
Egers said Rabbi Grunwald was released after posting $10,000 bail.
Rabbi Friedlander remained in a federal detention center. His hearing was postponed until today so U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin and attorneys could investigate a court report that indicated Rabbi Friedlander was involved in a 1991 sex-related case in New York.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi Accused of Molesting Is Denied Bail
San Francisco Chronical - June 3, 1995
A Hasidic Jewish rabbi from New York accused of fondling a teenage girl on a flight from Australia to Los Angeles was denied bail yesterday by a judge who deemed him "a danger to the community."
U.S. Magistrate Carolyn Turchin ordered Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, charged with sexual abuse over the incident aboard the flight from Melbourne on Wednesday, held in federal prison until a hearing scheduled for Tuesday.
Friedlander, 44, who had accompanied his sect leader, Rabbi Israel Grunwald, on a trip to Australia to lecture Jews on sexual morality, was arrested along with Grunwald by airport police at Los Angeles and handed over to the FBI.
Friedlander allegedly put his hands down the 15-year-old's panties during an incident in which both Jewish religious leaders were said to have fondled the American teenager, who was traveling on her own.
Grunwald, also 44, has been charged with the lesser offense of abusive sexual conduct for allegedly cupping the girl's breasts in his hand and was freed Thursday on $10,000 bail.
Grunwald, an Orthodox Hasidic Jew, is a leader of the Pupa Hasidic sect and heads the Kehilas Joseph congregation in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.
Friedlander was denied bail because of a previous sexual abuse charge leveled against him in Monticello, a Catskill Mountains resort town in upstate New York. Turchin, in denying him bail, said she wanted more details on the New York case.
Los Angeles attorney Mitchell Egers, hired by the rabbis to defend them, called the girl's allegations "ridiculous.
A criminal complaint filed in court by FBI agent Mark Van Steenburg said Friedlander claimed the teenager initiated the incident.
____________________________________________________________________________________
The assistant to a Brooklyn rabbi was ordered held in jail in Los
Angeles over the weekend on charges he sexually abused a 15-year-old
girl during an international flight from Australia.
U.S. Magistrate Carolyn Turchin said Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, the assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald of Borough Park, represented a danger to the community and said she wanted more information about his arrest in 1991 on sexual abuse charges.
Friedlander and Grunwald, the leader of the Borough Park branch of the Pupa Hasidim, were arrested by FBI agents Wednesday at Los Angeles International Airport and were charged with the sexual abuse of a minor and abusive sexual contact on an international flight. Sexual abuse of a minor is punishable by up to 15 years' imprisonment.
Neighbors of Grunwald, who maintains the Kehilas Joseph synagogue in his home, yesterday expressed outrage over the arrests and said the men had been set up.
One woman said the community was "horrified" over the allegations. "This isn't America - anybody can pick on anybody and make a case that's totally baseless," she said.
A Hasidic man who gave his name only as Joseph was among a number of neighbors gathered outside Grunwald's home. "It's so far-fetched," he said. Asked if there was a movement to help the rabbi, Joseph said: "There is no movement needed because he has the full support of everybody."
A federal complaint charged that the two rabbis, both 44, fondled the girl several times on a United Airlines flight from Melbourne, Australia. The girl told FBI agents that she repeatedly told the men to leave her alone but that she kept her voice low because she was embarrassed. A woman passenger said she witnessed the incidents.
About 200 members of the Pupa sect live in the neighborhood. Grunwald's older brother, Jacob, who lives in Williamsburg, is the chief rabbi of the sect, which claims 15,000 members worldwide. Their late father, Rabbi Joseph Grunwald, transplanted the sect from Pupa, Hungary, to Brooklyn after World War II.
Grunwald was released on Thursday after posting $10,000 bail. He is scheduled to appear for a court hearing in Los Angeles on June 21.
The magistrate ordered Friedlander held without bail for a hearing on Tuesday regarding allegations that he was arrested in Monticello Village, N.Y., on Oct 4, 1991, after being named in a misdemeanor sexual abuse complaint. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Eglash said the records were sealed after Friedlander pleaded guilty and was given 6 months' probation.
____________________________________________________________________________________
1 Accused Rabbi Will Stay Jailed for Weekend Courts: Judge terms him `a danger' pending bail hearing. He and a colleague, who has returned to New York, are accused of molesting girl on airliner
By Bettina Boxall
Los Angeles Times - June 3, 1995
With questions still hovering around the prior arrest of one of two New York rabbis charged in a sexual molestation case, Yehudah Friedlander will remain in jail this weekend.
Rejecting a request to release Friedlander for a Jewish holiday, a federal magistrate ordered Friday that he be held pending a bail hearing Tuesday.
"I believe your client is a danger to the community," U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin told attorney Mitchell W. Egers, who had argued that Friedlander was neither a danger nor a flight risk and therefore should be let out of jail to observe the Sabbath and Shavuot, a holiday that begins this evening.
In a case that has stunned the Orthodox Jewish community, Rabbi Israel Grunwald, a leader of a New-York based Hasidic sect, and Friedlander, his assistant, are accused of molesting a 15-year-old girl on a flight from Australia to Los Angeles this week.
Grunwald, charged with abusive sexual contact, was released on $10,000 bail Thursday night and returned to New York. The bail hearing for Friedlander, charged with sexual abuse of a minor, has twice been continued to give authorities time to determine the final outcome of his 1991 arrest in Monticello Township, N.Y.
According to Assistant U.S. Atty. Joel Thvedt, Friedlander was charged four years ago with having sexual contact with someone without consent. He apparently was given a conditional disposition: If he successfully completed probation, the case would not be prosecuted.
The court records were sealed, however, delaying the files' release to federal prosecutors in Los Angeles.
Thvedt said that his office received the records Friday afternoon but that the contents would be open only to court officials. The matter will be taken up again Tuesday morning, when Turchin is expected to set bail for Friedlander, 44.
Judging from the magistrate's comments Friday, the figure will be considerably higher than it was for Grunwald, who is charged with a less serious offense. Turchin said that on Tuesday, Friedlander should be prepared to say if he has property to post a "significant" bond. She also indicated that she may require him to wear an electronic monitoring device to track his whereabouts.
In an affidavit accompanying a federal complaint filed in Los Angeles, authorities allege that Grunwald, 44, fondled the teen-ager's breast and that Friedlander fondled and molested her while she tried to sleep under a blanket during the transpacific flight.
The teen-ager told authorities that she persistently attempted to fend off the advances but did so quietly because she was embarrassed by the situation and did not want to attract attention.
The complaint states that another passenger, a woman from Michigan, told the FBI that she saw one of the men groping the girl under the blanket. After talking to the girl later, the woman alerted the flight crew, which contacted authorities, and the men were arrested as they got off the plane Wednesday.
The affidavit further quotes Friedlander, in an interview with the FBI, as admitting sexual contact with the girl. But he says that she initiated it. Egers, maintaining his clients' innocence, said the affidavit is inaccurate.
The allegations have ricocheted through the Orthodox community, which did not seem aware of Friedlander's previous arrest and now finds it impossible to believe that two well-respected figures in an ultra-orthodox Hasidic sect could do what they are accused of.
"Hasidic leaders are charismatic persons who are role models of an extraordinary nature," said Rabbi Eli Schochet of Shomrei Torah Synagogue in West Hills. That, he said, "makes accusations of this sort striking-almost blasphemous-particularly when they believe that a man is prohibited from being in the same room with a woman to whom he is not married or related."
"No physical contact whatsoever would be permitted," according to Jewish law, said Schochet, a rabbi in the Conservative branch of Judaism.
In New York, "This news is being greeted with a combination of shock, horror and a very healthy dosage of skepticism," said Rabbi Yehuda Levin, host of a weekly radio show for the Hasidic community in Rockland County, outside New York City.
When he was shopping in preparation for the Sabbath Friday, Levin said, the talk on the streets was all about the arrests.
"People are saying they feel this girl saw these two Orthodox rabbis and didn't like the way they were either segregating themselves from her or treating her, so she decided they had done something to her," he said. "There's a very strong feeling that this is absolutely fictitious-that it is a canard."
At the same time, Levin said, people are seeing it as a message that "Americana, as it is, has crept into even the most Hasidic of households. . . . This is telling us to be on our guard."
Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, a spokesman for the Rabbinical Council of California, an Orthodox group, described the Pupa Hasidic sect, which Grunwald leads with his brother, as "small but certainly not insignificant."
Named after a Hungarian town, the sect was brought to America by Grunwald's father, a survivor of the Holocaust, who built up the Pupa community in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
Adlerstein, who is Orthodox but not Hasidic, said the Pupa sect served as an alternative to the larger Satmar sect for people who thought parts of Satmar were "strong or overstated."
"They (the Pupa) were sort of a mild-mannered group of Hasidim," he said.
The Grunwald family, he added, is a "respected and known name in Hasidim." After the death of Rebbe Grunwald, the community broke up and Israel Grunwald and his brother each "carved out a different piece of the turf," Adlerstein said.
While he said he found the charges ludicrous, Rabbi Abraham Hecht of New York added that if they turn out to be true, Grunwald will get no sympathy.
"Rabbis will bring the wrath of heaven down on him," he said.
Times staff writers John Dart, Bob Pool and Larry B. Stammer contributed to this story.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi's assistant to remain in jail
Associated Press - June 3, 1995
The assistant to a prominent Hasidic rabbi will spend the weekend in jail on a charge that he sexually molested a teen-ager on a plane trip, a judge ruled Friday.
Yehudah Friedlander is a danger to the community, U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin said as she issued the ruling. The judge also said she wants more information about a 1991 sex case involving Friedlander before she sets his bail. Friedlander was being held without bail in the federal detention center downtown.
Friedlander and Rabbi Israel Grunwald were arrested Wednesday at Los Angeles International Airport. The men, both 44, were on their way home to New York after a trip to Melbourne, Australia, when authorities say they molested a 15-year-old girl.
____________________________________________________________________________________
METROPOLITAN DESK
Orlando Setinel - June 2, 1995
Two Hasidic rabbis from New York were due to appear in U.S.
District Court on Thursday after being accused of sexually abusing a young girl during a long flight from Australia to the United States. An FBI spokesman said the two were arrested when the plane, which originated in Melbourne, Australia, landed at Los Angeles.
The rabbis were identified as Israel Grunwald and Yehudah Friedlander, both 44.
____________________________________________________________________________________
2 Hasidic Rabbis Accused of Fondling Girl
By Pete Bowles and Joseph A. Gambardello
Los Angeles Times - June 2, 1995
Two Brooklyn rabbis, described by associates as strict followers of the Orthodox practice of avoiding any contact with women, have been charged with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl during a flight from Australia.
Israel Grunwald, the leader of the Borough Park branch of the Pupa Hasidim, and Yehudah Friedlander, his secretary, were arrested by FBI agents when they arrived Wednesday morning at Los Angeles International Airport and were charged with the sexual abuse of a minor and abusive sexual contact on an international flight.
"The accusations are completely, absolutely, without any basis in fact. It's ridiculous," said Mitchell Egers, an attorney for the rabbis.
Rabbi Beryl Freilich of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park called the charges "ridiculous, bizarre, absurd, humiliating," and added: "This is a man who wouldn't talk to a woman, and on a flight with 300 people, all of a sudden they decided to fondle a girl?"
According to the FBI affidavit, the two rabbis, both 44, fondled the girl several times while on a United Airlines flight from Melbourne, Australia. The girl told FBI agents that she repeatedly told the men not to bother her but that she kept her voice low because she was embarrassed. One passenger told agents she was "horrified" when she saw one of the men put his hand under the girl's blanket and "grope" her for five to eight minutes, according to the affidavit.
FBI Agent Mark Van Steenburg said Friedlander, after being advised of his constitutional right to remain silent, said the girl had encouraged him to touch her. "I did it. I shouldn't have done it, but it happened," the agent quoted Friedlander as saying.
U.S. magistrate judge Carolyn Turchin set bail at $10,000 for Grunwald. Friedlander's bail hearing was adjourned until today after confusion arose over the disposition of a 1991 arrest in the Town of Monticello in which he was charged with sexual abuse.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbis accused of molesting girl
Buffalo News - June 2, 1995
A prominent New York City rabbi and his assistant appeared in federal court in Los Angeles on charges that they sexually molested a 15-year-old girl on a plane ride from Australia.
Rabbi Israel Grunwald and Rabbi Yehuda Friedlander, both 44, appeared before a federal magistrate judge there after their Wednesday arrest by airport police at Los Angeles Airport.
"The idea they're doing something wrong under those circumstances, with a plane full of people, in each other's presence, is ridiculous," Mitchell W. Egers, their attorney, said Thursday.
Egers said Rabbi Grunwald was released after posting $10,000 bail.
Rabbi Friedlander remained in a federal detention center. His hearing was postponed until today so U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin and attorneys could investigate a court report that indicated Rabbi Friedlander was involved in a 1991 sex-related case in New York.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi Accused of Molesting Is Denied Bail
San Francisco Chronical - June 3, 1995
A Hasidic Jewish rabbi from New York accused of fondling a teenage girl on a flight from Australia to Los Angeles was denied bail yesterday by a judge who deemed him "a danger to the community."
U.S. Magistrate Carolyn Turchin ordered Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, charged with sexual abuse over the incident aboard the flight from Melbourne on Wednesday, held in federal prison until a hearing scheduled for Tuesday.
Friedlander, 44, who had accompanied his sect leader, Rabbi Israel Grunwald, on a trip to Australia to lecture Jews on sexual morality, was arrested along with Grunwald by airport police at Los Angeles and handed over to the FBI.
Friedlander allegedly put his hands down the 15-year-old's panties during an incident in which both Jewish religious leaders were said to have fondled the American teenager, who was traveling on her own.
Grunwald, also 44, has been charged with the lesser offense of abusive sexual conduct for allegedly cupping the girl's breasts in his hand and was freed Thursday on $10,000 bail.
Grunwald, an Orthodox Hasidic Jew, is a leader of the Pupa Hasidic sect and heads the Kehilas Joseph congregation in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.
Friedlander was denied bail because of a previous sexual abuse charge leveled against him in Monticello, a Catskill Mountains resort town in upstate New York. Turchin, in denying him bail, said she wanted more details on the New York case.
Los Angeles attorney Mitchell Egers, hired by the rabbis to defend them, called the girl's allegations "ridiculous.
A criminal complaint filed in court by FBI agent Mark Van Steenburg said Friedlander claimed the teenager initiated the incident.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi's Aide Held On Abuse Charges
By Peter Bowels and Paul Moses
Newsday - June 3, 1995
U.S. Magistrate Carolyn Turchin said Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, the assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald of Borough Park, represented a danger to the community and said she wanted more information about his arrest in 1991 on sexual abuse charges.
Friedlander and Grunwald, the leader of the Borough Park branch of the Pupa Hasidim, were arrested by FBI agents Wednesday at Los Angeles International Airport and were charged with the sexual abuse of a minor and abusive sexual contact on an international flight. Sexual abuse of a minor is punishable by up to 15 years' imprisonment.
Neighbors of Grunwald, who maintains the Kehilas Joseph synagogue in his home, yesterday expressed outrage over the arrests and said the men had been set up.
One woman said the community was "horrified" over the allegations. "This isn't America - anybody can pick on anybody and make a case that's totally baseless," she said.
A Hasidic man who gave his name only as Joseph was among a number of neighbors gathered outside Grunwald's home. "It's so far-fetched," he said. Asked if there was a movement to help the rabbi, Joseph said: "There is no movement needed because he has the full support of everybody."
A federal complaint charged that the two rabbis, both 44, fondled the girl several times on a United Airlines flight from Melbourne, Australia. The girl told FBI agents that she repeatedly told the men to leave her alone but that she kept her voice low because she was embarrassed. A woman passenger said she witnessed the incidents.
About 200 members of the Pupa sect live in the neighborhood. Grunwald's older brother, Jacob, who lives in Williamsburg, is the chief rabbi of the sect, which claims 15,000 members worldwide. Their late father, Rabbi Joseph Grunwald, transplanted the sect from Pupa, Hungary, to Brooklyn after World War II.
Grunwald was released on Thursday after posting $10,000 bail. He is scheduled to appear for a court hearing in Los Angeles on June 21.
The magistrate ordered Friedlander held without bail for a hearing on Tuesday regarding allegations that he was arrested in Monticello Village, N.Y., on Oct 4, 1991, after being named in a misdemeanor sexual abuse complaint. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Eglash said the records were sealed after Friedlander pleaded guilty and was given 6 months' probation.
1 Accused Rabbi Will Stay Jailed for Weekend Courts: Judge terms him `a danger' pending bail hearing. He and a colleague, who has returned to New York, are accused of molesting girl on airliner
By Bettina Boxall
Los Angeles Times - June 3, 1995
With questions still hovering around the prior arrest of one of two New York rabbis charged in a sexual molestation case, Yehudah Friedlander will remain in jail this weekend.
Rejecting a request to release Friedlander for a Jewish holiday, a federal magistrate ordered Friday that he be held pending a bail hearing Tuesday.
"I believe your client is a danger to the community," U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin told attorney Mitchell W. Egers, who had argued that Friedlander was neither a danger nor a flight risk and therefore should be let out of jail to observe the Sabbath and Shavuot, a holiday that begins this evening.
In a case that has stunned the Orthodox Jewish community, Rabbi Israel Grunwald, a leader of a New-York based Hasidic sect, and Friedlander, his assistant, are accused of molesting a 15-year-old girl on a flight from Australia to Los Angeles this week.
Grunwald, charged with abusive sexual contact, was released on $10,000 bail Thursday night and returned to New York. The bail hearing for Friedlander, charged with sexual abuse of a minor, has twice been continued to give authorities time to determine the final outcome of his 1991 arrest in Monticello Township, N.Y.
According to Assistant U.S. Atty. Joel Thvedt, Friedlander was charged four years ago with having sexual contact with someone without consent. He apparently was given a conditional disposition: If he successfully completed probation, the case would not be prosecuted.
The court records were sealed, however, delaying the files' release to federal prosecutors in Los Angeles.
Thvedt said that his office received the records Friday afternoon but that the contents would be open only to court officials. The matter will be taken up again Tuesday morning, when Turchin is expected to set bail for Friedlander, 44.
Judging from the magistrate's comments Friday, the figure will be considerably higher than it was for Grunwald, who is charged with a less serious offense. Turchin said that on Tuesday, Friedlander should be prepared to say if he has property to post a "significant" bond. She also indicated that she may require him to wear an electronic monitoring device to track his whereabouts.
In an affidavit accompanying a federal complaint filed in Los Angeles, authorities allege that Grunwald, 44, fondled the teen-ager's breast and that Friedlander fondled and molested her while she tried to sleep under a blanket during the transpacific flight.
The teen-ager told authorities that she persistently attempted to fend off the advances but did so quietly because she was embarrassed by the situation and did not want to attract attention.
The complaint states that another passenger, a woman from Michigan, told the FBI that she saw one of the men groping the girl under the blanket. After talking to the girl later, the woman alerted the flight crew, which contacted authorities, and the men were arrested as they got off the plane Wednesday.
The affidavit further quotes Friedlander, in an interview with the FBI, as admitting sexual contact with the girl. But he says that she initiated it. Egers, maintaining his clients' innocence, said the affidavit is inaccurate.
The allegations have ricocheted through the Orthodox community, which did not seem aware of Friedlander's previous arrest and now finds it impossible to believe that two well-respected figures in an ultra-orthodox Hasidic sect could do what they are accused of.
"Hasidic leaders are charismatic persons who are role models of an extraordinary nature," said Rabbi Eli Schochet of Shomrei Torah Synagogue in West Hills. That, he said, "makes accusations of this sort striking-almost blasphemous-particularly when they believe that a man is prohibited from being in the same room with a woman to whom he is not married or related."
"No physical contact whatsoever would be permitted," according to Jewish law, said Schochet, a rabbi in the Conservative branch of Judaism.
In New York, "This news is being greeted with a combination of shock, horror and a very healthy dosage of skepticism," said Rabbi Yehuda Levin, host of a weekly radio show for the Hasidic community in Rockland County, outside New York City.
When he was shopping in preparation for the Sabbath Friday, Levin said, the talk on the streets was all about the arrests.
"People are saying they feel this girl saw these two Orthodox rabbis and didn't like the way they were either segregating themselves from her or treating her, so she decided they had done something to her," he said. "There's a very strong feeling that this is absolutely fictitious-that it is a canard."
At the same time, Levin said, people are seeing it as a message that "Americana, as it is, has crept into even the most Hasidic of households. . . . This is telling us to be on our guard."
Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, a spokesman for the Rabbinical Council of California, an Orthodox group, described the Pupa Hasidic sect, which Grunwald leads with his brother, as "small but certainly not insignificant."
Named after a Hungarian town, the sect was brought to America by Grunwald's father, a survivor of the Holocaust, who built up the Pupa community in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
Adlerstein, who is Orthodox but not Hasidic, said the Pupa sect served as an alternative to the larger Satmar sect for people who thought parts of Satmar were "strong or overstated."
"They (the Pupa) were sort of a mild-mannered group of Hasidim," he said.
The Grunwald family, he added, is a "respected and known name in Hasidim." After the death of Rebbe Grunwald, the community broke up and Israel Grunwald and his brother each "carved out a different piece of the turf," Adlerstein said.
While he said he found the charges ludicrous, Rabbi Abraham Hecht of New York added that if they turn out to be true, Grunwald will get no sympathy.
"Rabbis will bring the wrath of heaven down on him," he said.
Times staff writers John Dart, Bob Pool and Larry B. Stammer contributed to this story.
Rabbi's assistant to remain in jail
Associated Press - June 3, 1995
The assistant to a prominent Hasidic rabbi will spend the weekend in jail on a charge that he sexually molested a teen-ager on a plane trip, a judge ruled Friday.
Yehudah Friedlander is a danger to the community, U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin said as she issued the ruling. The judge also said she wants more information about a 1991 sex case involving Friedlander before she sets his bail. Friedlander was being held without bail in the federal detention center downtown.
Friedlander and Rabbi Israel Grunwald were arrested Wednesday at Los Angeles International Airport. The men, both 44, were on their way home to New York after a trip to Melbourne, Australia, when authorities say they molested a 15-year-old girl.
METROPOLITAN DESK
Brooklyn Rabbi Is Freed on Bail In Sex Case, but Assistant Is Held
By ROBERT D. MCFADDEN
New York Times - June 3, 1995
 |
| Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander (2011) Convicted Sex Offender |
The two rabbis were returning on a United Air Lines flight to Los Angeles on Wednesday when an American girl traveling alone ran sobbing to the crew and accused the men of molesting her. The rabbis were arrested on arrival in Los Angeles.
Rabbi Grunwald, the leader of Congregation Tuldos Yakov Yosef, was charged with sexually touching a minor and was released on a $10,000 signature bond at a hearing on Thursday. He flew to New York yesterday and went into seclusion at his home at 1137 53d Street.
But Rabbi Friedlander, who was charged with more extensive sexual abuse, was held without bail after prosecutors said he had admitted some of the acts, although contending that the girl had encouraged him.
Prosecutors also told the court on Thursday that Rabbi Friedlander had been involved in a 1991 sexual-abuse case in Monticello, N.Y. The prosecutors erroneously told the court then that he had pleaded guilty to a charge of third-degree sexual abuse, the records of which had been sealed. The magistrate ordered the defendant held pending the unsealing of those records.
Returning to court yesterday, prosecutors said they had not yet received permission from a New York judge to obtain the sealed records. Federal Magistrate Carolyn Turchin ordered the hearing continued and Rabbi Friedlander held until Tuesday.
In New York yesterday, Justice Robert C. Williams of State Supreme Court in Monticello, acting on a request relayed by the Sullivan County District Attorney, Stephen Lungen, ordered the case record sent to Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles.
Prosecutors refused to disclose the contents of the record. But officials close to the inquiry said that Rabbi Friedlander, while working at a yeshiva, had been accused of sexual abuse by a dismissed employee.
In an appearance in Monticello Village Court in October, 1991, he did not plead guilty, officials said. Instead, a judge ordered a six-month adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, on condition of good behavior. After six months, the charge was dismissed and the case record was sealed.
Rabbi Friedlander's lawyer, Mitchell Egers, said yesterday that the charges against his client were false.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Hassidic rabbi and assistant charged with molestation
Jerusalem Post - June 6, 1995
A RESPECTED hassidic rabbi and his assistant have been charged with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl last week during an overnight flight here from Australia. The accused are Rabbi Israel Grunwald of Brooklyn, a leader of the Hungarian Pupa hassidim, and his assistant, Yehudah Friedlander, both 44.
Following a hearing last Thursday, US Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin released Grunwald on $10,000 bail, and he immediately flew to New York. He is scheduled to return for a preliminary hearing on June 21.
Friedlander remained in detention over Shabbat and Shavuot, despite Egers' protests. He is being held pending clarification over the disposition of a 1991 arrest in New York state, in which he was charged with a sexual offense. He is to appear today for a bail hearing.
A nine-page affidavit submitted to the court by an FBI agent alleges a number of occurrences during the United Air Lines overnight flight.
The girl, an American traveling alone, accused Grunwald of leaning across an empty seat and, following some conversation, touching her necklace and fondling her breasts.
At some point, Friedlander exchanged seats with Grunwald, and while the cabin lights were dimmed, Friedlander allegedly groped and fondled the girl's private parts and breast for some five to eight minutes, the complaint charged.
The teenager told authorities that she tried to fend off the advances but was too embarrassed to call for help. However, a woman passenger observed the alleged incident, talked to the girl and then notified the fight crew, which radioed a report to authorities.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi Refused Bail In Plane Sex Case
New York TImes - June 7, 1995
A Federal magistrate today refused to release the assistant rabbi of a Brooklyn congregation who was arrested last week on charges of sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl on a jetliner.
The magistrate, Carolyn Turchin, denied bail for the assistant rabbi, Yehudah Friedlander, 44, saying, "I do find, by clear and convincing evidence, that the defendant is a danger to the community."
Rabbi Friedlander was arrested with Rabbi Israel Grunwald, the chief rabbi of a Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Borough Park, Brooklyn, on May 29 after arriving here on a flight from Australia.
The girl told the authorities that one man reached inside her shirt and grabbed her breast, and the other later pushed his hand into her panties, an affidavit said. A lawyer for the rabbis said they denied the accusations.
Rabbi Grunwald was released last week on $10,000 bail. But Judge Turchin refused to release Rabbi Friedlander because of a 1991 sex abuse accusation in Monticello, N.Y. That case reportedly was dismissed.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi's Assistant Kept in Jail on Sex Charge Crime: U.S. judge cites `very, very strong' allegations. The Brooklyn man and a Hasidic leader are accused of molesting 15-year-old girl on a flight to Los Angeles
Bettina Boxall
Los Angeles Times - June 7, 1995
Citing the seriousness of the allegations as well as the suspect's record, a federal magistrate refused Tuesday to release a rabbi's assistant jailed on charges that he sexually molested a teen-age girl on a transpacific flight.
"The corroborated allegations in the affidavit are very, very strong at this time," U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin said at a Los Angeles bail hearing, referring to the complaint filed against Yehudah Friedlander, 44, of Brooklyn, N.Y.
"I believe your client is a serious danger to the community," she told defense attorney Mitchell W. Egers.
Turchin said she would consider setting bail for Friedlander if someone who has known him for at least five years is willing to post a $100,000 personal property bond.
In remarks to reporters, Egers later said he would make every effort to get his client out of jail, which he described as a particularly unpleasant place for a religious person such as Friedlander.
Both Friedlander and Rabbi Israel Grunwald, with whom he was traveling on an Australia-to-Los Angeles flight last week, are accused of sexually abusing a 15-year-old who sat in their row.
Grunwald, a leader of a New York-based Hasidic sect, was released on $10,000 bail last week and returned home. He is charged with abusive sexual contact. Friedlander, who Egers said is Grunwald's assistant but is not an ordained rabbi, is charged with sexual abuse of a minor.
Proclaiming the innocence of both men, Egers has criticized the accuracy of a detailed affidavit filed with the complaint. In addition to quoting the teen-ager, the document quotes another passenger as saying that she saw one of the men groping the girl and quotes Friedlander as saying that he sexually touched the girl after she encouraged him to do so.
Egers had requested $25,000 bail for Friedlander, who is married and has five children.
Government prosecutors asked that Friedlander be held or that Turchin require a $100,000 bond before releasing him.
"Essentially," Assistant U.S. Atty. Debra Yang argued, Friedlander "reached into the pants of a 15-year-old minor who was a stranger."
Yang added that the circumstances underlying Friedlander's 1991 arrest in Sullivan County, N.Y., were troubling. Turchin seemed to agree, telling Egers, "I construe the documents as essentially unfavorable to your client."
The files of the prior arrest were made available to Turchin and the attorneys, but they otherwise remain sealed by court order and details of the case were not publicly disclosed.
Prosecutors say the charge, a misdemeanor alleging sexual contact without consent, was dismissed after Friedlander completed a six-month probation. Egers indicated in court that the complaint had been filed by an adult.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Bail Set for Rabbi In Sex Abuse Case
New York Times - June 8, 1995
A Federal magistrate set bail at $200,000 today for a Brooklyn rabbi accused of molesting a 15-year-old girl during an airplane flight.
Magistrate Carolyn Turchin set bail for the rabbi, Yehudah Friedlander, after his sister and his daughter's father-in-law posted bonds to insure the bail.
Rabbi Friedlander, 44, an assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald, was expected to leave the Metropolitan Detention Center here by Thursday, his lawyer, Mitchell Egers, said.
When he returns to Brooklyn, he will be under house arrest and be required to stay away from juveniles except his own children. He must also be supervised during flights to Los Angeles for court appearances, Ms. Turchin said.
Rabbi Friedlander and Rabbi Grunwald, 44, were arrested on May 29 at Los Angeles Airport on charges that they fondled the girl during a flight from Australia to Los Angeles. Both men were charged with abusive sexual conduct.
Rabbi Grunwald was released earlier on $10,000 bail. Ms. Turchin rejected Rabbi Friedlander's request for bail on Tuesday.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Bonds posted in molest case
Associated Press - June 8, 1995
A federal magistrate on Wednesday set bail at $200,000 for a Brooklyn rabbi's assistant accused of molesting a 15-year-old girl during an airplane flight.
U.S. Magistrate Carolyn Turchin set bail for Yehudah Friedlander after his sister and his daughter's father-in-law posted bonds to ensure the bail.
Friedlander, 44, an assistant to prominent Rabbi Israel Grunwald, was expected to leave the Metropolitan Detention Center late Wednesday or sometime today, said his attorney, Mitchell Egers.
When he returns to Brooklyn, he will be under house arrest and must stay away from juveniles except his own children. He also must be supervised during flights back to Los Angeles for court appearances, Turchin said.
Friedlander and Grunwald were arrested May 29 at Los Angeles International Airport on charges the pair fondled the girl during a flight from Australia to Los Angeles. Both men were charged with abusive sexual conduct.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Bond Set in Sex Case of Rabbi's Assistant
By Bettina Boxall
Los Angeles Times - June 8, 2012
Ending nearly a week of bail hearings for a rabbi's assistant accused of sexually molesting a teen-age girl, a federal magistrate Wednesday set a $200,000 appearance bond and placed him under house arrest.
Yehudah Friedlander has been in jail since May 31, when he and Rabbi Israel Grunwald were arrested at Los Angeles International Airport as they got off a plane from Australia. The two are charged with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl during the flight.
Grunwald, charged with a less serious offense, was released on $10,000 bail. He returned to New York last week. But Friedlander has had to appear in court several times while attorneys researched his record and argued over proposed bail conditions.
Having earlier deemed Friedlander a danger to the community, U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin on Wednesday ordered that he remain under house arrest in Brooklyn after he posts bond. The judge also ordered Friedlander to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet to allow authorities to track his whereabouts.
Los Angeles Times - June 8, 2012
Ending nearly a week of bail hearings for a rabbi's assistant accused of sexually molesting a teen-age girl, a federal magistrate Wednesday set a $200,000 appearance bond and placed him under house arrest.
Yehudah Friedlander has been in jail since May 31, when he and Rabbi Israel Grunwald were arrested at Los Angeles International Airport as they got off a plane from Australia. The two are charged with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl during the flight.
Grunwald, charged with a less serious offense, was released on $10,000 bail. He returned to New York last week. But Friedlander has had to appear in court several times while attorneys researched his record and argued over proposed bail conditions.
Having earlier deemed Friedlander a danger to the community, U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin on Wednesday ordered that he remain under house arrest in Brooklyn after he posts bond. The judge also ordered Friedlander to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet to allow authorities to track his whereabouts.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Grand jury to hear sexual misconduct case involving rabbis
by TOM TUGEND
Jewish Telegraphic Agency - June 9, 1995
LOS ANGELES -- Federal authorities will decide next week whether to seek indictments of a respected Chassidic rabbi and his assistant, both of whom have been charged with sexually abusing a 15-year old girl on a flight from Australia to Los Angeles.
The assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, Joel Thvedt, said he intended to present the case to a grand jury, which would decide whether to prosecute.
The accused are Rabbi Israel Grunwald of Brooklyn, a leader of the Hungarian Pupa Chassidim, and his assistant, Yehudah Friedlander, both 44 years old.
Their arrests have sparked outrage in the Chassidic and Orthodox communities of New York, while Los Angeles rabbis moved quickly to aid their colleagues.
Both of the accused have vehemently denied the charges, according to their attorney, Mitchell W. Egers.
After a hearing here June 2, U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin released Grunwald on $10,000 bail. He immediately flew back to New York.
Grunwald, charged with sexually touching a minor, faces a maximum of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine if he is convicted.
Friedlander remained in detention over the Sabbath and the Shavuot holiday, despite Egers' protests. He was being held pending clarification of the disposition of a 1991 arrest in New York state, in which he was charged with a sexual offense.
On Tuesday, Turchin denied a cash bail to Friedlander, calling him "a danger to society."
The judge said Friedlander only would be released if someone put up his or her house with equity valued at least at $100,000.
If convicted, Friedlander, who was charged with more extensive sexual abuse, faces up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Friedlander has been identified in the media as a rabbi or "assistant rabbi," but according to Egers and New York sources, he is actually a non-rabbinical assistant.
A nine-page affidavit submitted to the court by an FBI agent, which cites statements by the young girl, a witness on the plane and Friedlander, alleges a number of occurrences during the long United Air Lines overnight flight.
The girl, an American traveling alone, accused Grunwald of leaning across an empty seat and, following some conversation, touching her necklace and fondling her breasts.
At some point, Friedlander allegedly exchanged seats with Grunwald, and while the cabin lights were dimmed, Friedlander allegedly groped and fondled the girl's private parts and breast for some five to eight minutes, the complaint charged.
The teenager told authorities that she tried to fend off the advances but was too embarrassed to call for help. However, a woman passenger observed the alleged incident, talked to the girl and then notified the flight crew, which radioed a report to authorities.
When the plane landed in Los Angeles, FBI agents, who assumed jurisdiction under the laws governing American aircraft in flight, arrested the two men.
One agent quoted Friedlander as telling him that it was the girl who initiated the advances, adding that "I shouldn't have done it, but it happened."
Egers said Friedlander was "in a state of shock and deeply upset that the whole Jewish world" knows about the accusations.
Egers, a veteran trial lawyer with close ties to the Orthodox community, said when he and his two clients appeared in court last week, he was "besieged by armies of reporters, with just about all the media from New York and Los Angeles on hand." For a day, "we were bigger than the O.J. Simpson case."
Reaction to the arrests was sharpest in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn, where Grunwald serves as rabbi of Congregation Tuldos Yacov Yosef.
Rabbi Bernard Freilich, administrator of the Council of Jewish Organizations in Boro Park, told The New York Times that "people are outraged at these charges. They are unbelievable, impossible nonsense. It is impossible that an Orthodox Chassidic person would even speak to a female, much less touch her."
Rabbi Abner Weiss of the Orthodox Beth Jacob Congregation in Beverly Hills took a less categorical view. He was being installed as the new president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California when he received word of the arrests.
In his first act in office, Weiss conferred with Aaron Kriegel, a Conservative rabbi who serves as prison chaplain, to assure that the two Chasidim would receive kosher food. Weiss said he personally bought loaves of challah for Grunwald and Friedlander.
Without passing judgment on the case, Weiss, who holds a graduate degree in psychology, noted that, in general, "Jews are not immune to any kind of illness, physical or mental."
____________________________________________________________________________________
Two Rabbis Are Charged In Sexual Abuse on a PlaneBy ROBERT D. MCFADDEN (NYT) 887 words
New York Times - June 2, 1995
The chief rabbi of a Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and his assistant rabbi were charged in Los Angeles yesterday with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl on a flight from Melbourne, Australia, where the men had been on a lecture tour. The rabbis denied the allegations.
The suspects, Rabbi Israel Grunwald, 44, the head of Congregation Tuldos Yakov Yosef, and his assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, 44, were arrested as they stepped off a plane at Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday on the basis of a complaint made during the flight by a sobbing girl and radioed ahead, Federal officials said.
Arraigned in Los Angeles yesterday before a United States magistrate, Carolyn Turchin, Rabbi Grunwald was released on $10,000 bail for a June 21 preliminary hearing on a Federal charge of sexually touching a minor, an offense with maximum penalties of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Rabbi Friedlander, who was charged with more extensive sexual abuse, was held for further investigation after the court was told he had admitted some of the acts to Federal agents, though contending that the girl had encouraged him, and that Rabbi Friedlander had pleaded guilty to a charge of third-degree sexual abuse in Monticello, N.Y., in 1991. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years and a $250,000 fine.
Neither suspect entered a formal plea during the hearings, which were attended by dozens of rabbis from Los Angeles and New York in support of their colleagues. But outside the court, Mitchell Egers, a lawyer representing both men, said his clients vehemently denied the charges.
"These are fine, decent, moral men, highly respected and looked up to by thousands of people in their community," Mr. Egers said. He said neither rabbi knew the girl, who is American, and he called the case "a mixup" and said he was "confident that the truth will emerge and that we'll all be happy."
Rabbi Bernard Freilich, administrator of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park, which represents 250 Jewish congregations, said Rabbi Grunwald was the son of Josef Grunwald, the late Grand Rabbi of the Pupa Hasidim, who transplanted Holocaust survivors from Pupa, Hungary, to Brooklyn after World War II.
Today, the sect has more than 12,000 members in Monsey, N.Y., Montreal, London and Jerusalem, as well as in Williamsburg and Borough Park in Brooklyn. Yakov Grunwald, the founder's eldest son, is the Grand Rabbi and head of the Williamsburg community, and Israel Grunwald leads several hundred families in Borough Park.
The acts were said to have occurred on United Air Lines Flight 842 over the Pacific. Federal prosecutors, who assumed jurisdiction under laws governing United States aircraft in flight, said the girl, whose name was withheld because of her age -- she turned 15 during the flight -- had accused Rabbi Grunwald, after first engaging her in conversation, of reaching across an empty seat, placing his hand under her shirt and touching her breast.
The girl's detailed complaint said Rabbi Friedlander, who had been sitting on the far side of his colleague, exchanged seats with Rabbi Grunwald, and made a series of unwanted approaches while the cabin lights were dimmed for movies and rest periods during the long overnight flight.
She said he forced his hand under her clothing and touched her breast repeatedly and her vagina, despite her pleas for him to stop and her efforts to push his hand away. The girl said she finally began sobbing and retreated to the lavatory.
An affidavit by Mark Van Steenburg, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's senior agent at the Los Angeles Airport, said that another passenger, Sheila Myers, seated across an aisle just forward of the girl, told him she saw Rabbi Friedlander grope the girl for five to eight minutes under a blanket and alerted the flight crew.
Mr. Van Steenburg said Rabbi Friedlander told him the girl had put his hand on her breast twice, and on her pelvic area. "I did it, I shouldn't have done it, but it happened," the agent quoted the rabbi as saying.
The allegations stunned the rabbis' colleagues, neighbors and members of their community in Borough Park, many of whom called the actions unthinkable and the charges unbelievable, possibly trumped up by the teen-aged girl. They also complained that the rabbis, who were dressed in their traditional black garb and wore beards and sidecurls, had been humiliated by Federal agents who handcuffed them as they stepped off the plane.
"It's the most shocking thing I could ever think of," said a neighbor of Rabbi Grunwald, who lives with his family above his synagogue at 1137 53d Street.
Rabbi Freilich spoke of "tremendous anger in the Jewish community" over the charges, and said: "It is impossible that an Orthodox Hasidic person would even speak to a female, much less touch her. Our information is that she was trying to get into a conversation with them. To us, it looks like she drummed up a charge."
New York Times - June 2, 1995
The chief rabbi of a Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and his assistant rabbi were charged in Los Angeles yesterday with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl on a flight from Melbourne, Australia, where the men had been on a lecture tour. The rabbis denied the allegations.
The suspects, Rabbi Israel Grunwald, 44, the head of Congregation Tuldos Yakov Yosef, and his assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, 44, were arrested as they stepped off a plane at Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday on the basis of a complaint made during the flight by a sobbing girl and radioed ahead, Federal officials said.
Arraigned in Los Angeles yesterday before a United States magistrate, Carolyn Turchin, Rabbi Grunwald was released on $10,000 bail for a June 21 preliminary hearing on a Federal charge of sexually touching a minor, an offense with maximum penalties of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Rabbi Friedlander, who was charged with more extensive sexual abuse, was held for further investigation after the court was told he had admitted some of the acts to Federal agents, though contending that the girl had encouraged him, and that Rabbi Friedlander had pleaded guilty to a charge of third-degree sexual abuse in Monticello, N.Y., in 1991. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years and a $250,000 fine.
Neither suspect entered a formal plea during the hearings, which were attended by dozens of rabbis from Los Angeles and New York in support of their colleagues. But outside the court, Mitchell Egers, a lawyer representing both men, said his clients vehemently denied the charges.
"These are fine, decent, moral men, highly respected and looked up to by thousands of people in their community," Mr. Egers said. He said neither rabbi knew the girl, who is American, and he called the case "a mixup" and said he was "confident that the truth will emerge and that we'll all be happy."
Rabbi Bernard Freilich, administrator of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park, which represents 250 Jewish congregations, said Rabbi Grunwald was the son of Josef Grunwald, the late Grand Rabbi of the Pupa Hasidim, who transplanted Holocaust survivors from Pupa, Hungary, to Brooklyn after World War II.
Today, the sect has more than 12,000 members in Monsey, N.Y., Montreal, London and Jerusalem, as well as in Williamsburg and Borough Park in Brooklyn. Yakov Grunwald, the founder's eldest son, is the Grand Rabbi and head of the Williamsburg community, and Israel Grunwald leads several hundred families in Borough Park.
The acts were said to have occurred on United Air Lines Flight 842 over the Pacific. Federal prosecutors, who assumed jurisdiction under laws governing United States aircraft in flight, said the girl, whose name was withheld because of her age -- she turned 15 during the flight -- had accused Rabbi Grunwald, after first engaging her in conversation, of reaching across an empty seat, placing his hand under her shirt and touching her breast.
The girl's detailed complaint said Rabbi Friedlander, who had been sitting on the far side of his colleague, exchanged seats with Rabbi Grunwald, and made a series of unwanted approaches while the cabin lights were dimmed for movies and rest periods during the long overnight flight.
She said he forced his hand under her clothing and touched her breast repeatedly and her vagina, despite her pleas for him to stop and her efforts to push his hand away. The girl said she finally began sobbing and retreated to the lavatory.
An affidavit by Mark Van Steenburg, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's senior agent at the Los Angeles Airport, said that another passenger, Sheila Myers, seated across an aisle just forward of the girl, told him she saw Rabbi Friedlander grope the girl for five to eight minutes under a blanket and alerted the flight crew.
Mr. Van Steenburg said Rabbi Friedlander told him the girl had put his hand on her breast twice, and on her pelvic area. "I did it, I shouldn't have done it, but it happened," the agent quoted the rabbi as saying.
The allegations stunned the rabbis' colleagues, neighbors and members of their community in Borough Park, many of whom called the actions unthinkable and the charges unbelievable, possibly trumped up by the teen-aged girl. They also complained that the rabbis, who were dressed in their traditional black garb and wore beards and sidecurls, had been humiliated by Federal agents who handcuffed them as they stepped off the plane.
"It's the most shocking thing I could ever think of," said a neighbor of Rabbi Grunwald, who lives with his family above his synagogue at 1137 53d Street.
Rabbi Freilich spoke of "tremendous anger in the Jewish community" over the charges, and said: "It is impossible that an Orthodox Hasidic person would even speak to a female, much less touch her. Our information is that she was trying to get into a conversation with them. To us, it looks like she drummed up a charge."
____________________________________________________________________________________
2 Rabbis Are Accused of Molesting Girl on Plane
By Bettina Boxall and J. Michael
Los Angeles Times - June 2, 1997
A prominent New York rabbi and his assistant appeared before a federal magistrate Thursday on charges that they sexually molested a teen-age girl on a flight between Australia and Los Angeles this week.
In a detailed affidavit accompanying the complaint filed in Los Angeles, federal authorities allege that the ultra-orthodox rabbi, Israel Grunwald, fondled the minor and that his assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, sexually abused the 15-year-old.
Through their attorney, the two, who were arrested when they got off the plane Wednesday, denied any wrongdoing.
"It did not happen," attorney Mitchell W. Egers said. "There's no question whatsoever about their innocence."
He dismissed as inaccurate passages from the affidavit in which Friedlander is quoted as saying that he sexually touched the girl after she initiated the episode.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin set $10,000 bail for Grunwald, a leader of the Pupa Hasidic sect and the head of a large congregation in Brooklyn.
The bail hearing for Friedlander was continued until this morning after some confusion arose over the disposition of a 1991 arrest in which he was charged with a sexual offense.
There is no apparent dispute about Friedlander's arrest in Montecello Township, N.Y., on Oct. 4, 1991, but one entry in the court records apparently stated that the case was dismissed, while another said that he was convicted and sentenced.
"I am aware there was some mix-up of some kind," Egers said. "We'll clarify it by tomorrow."
Egers, a Los Angeles attorney, said he was not familiar enough with New York law to know what the charge, sexual offense third degree, means.
"It may be something that really didn't amount to anything," he said. "I'll put the whole picture together by tomorrow."
About 15 supporters from New York and Los Angeles attended the court hearing, chanting from prayer books as they waited for the proceeding to begin.
In New York, the Orthodox community said Grunwald's incredulous followers were calling from around the world.
"He's a well respected person and very well liked," said Rabbi Bernard Freilich of the Council of Jewish Organizations in New York. "It's an impossible story. It's unbelievable. We're in total shock," Freilich said. "He's an ultra-orthodox rabbi. He wouldn't even speak to a girl, much less touch her."
The nine-page affidavit submitted by an FBI agent quotes Friedlander, the teen-ager-a U.S. citizen who was traveling alone-and a passenger who says she witnessed the incident.
According to the complaint, Grunwald, 44, leaned over an empty seat toward the girl, commented on her jewelry, touched her necklace and fondled her breast.
At some point, Friedlander, 44, exchanged seats with Grunwald. Then, the affidavit alleges that despite the girl's persistent protests, Friedlander fondled and molested her while she was covered with a blanket, trying to sleep.
The affidavit quotes a passenger from Michigan who, in a telephone interview with the FBI, said she saw a man she described as a rabbi lean over an empty seat and grope the teen-ager under her blanket for five to eight minutes.
After later talking to the teen-ager, the passenger alerted the flight crew, which contacted authorities in Los Angeles. The two men were arrested by airport police Wednesday morning as they left the plane.
Friedlander is charged with sexual abuse of a minor, and Grunwald, scheduled to return to court June 21 for a preliminary hearing, is charged with abusive sexual contact. The affidavit states that in comments to the FBI agent, Friedlander said the girl had guided his hand into her shirt and pants and "seemed" to want him to touch her.
"I did it, I shouldn't have done it. But it happened," Friedlander is quoted as saying.
Among the supporters who filled three rows of the courtroom during Thursday's hearing was Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin of Chabad of Los Angeles.
"Not only is he internationally known, but (Grunwald) and his assistant are married and reputable," Cunin said later. "The rabbi is a leader of thousands of thousands of thousands of followers both in America and Israel and Australia-all over the world. . . . I believe they'll be totally exonerated."
Grunwald, who had gone to Australia to lecture on the Talmud at the invitation of that country's Jewish community, comes from a long line of rabbinical scholars. Freilich said Grunwald's father was the grand rabbi of the Pupa sect in Hungary. Grunwald and his brother now lead the group.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi, assistant face sex-abuse charges
Washington Times - June 2, 1995
LOS ANGELES - A New York rabbi and his assistant were charged yesterday with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl aboard a flight from Australia.
Rabbi Israel Grunwald was charged with abusive sexual contact, and his assistant, Yehudah Friedlander, was charged with sexual abuse of a minor.
They were arrested Wednesday after the girl accused them of fondling her during a flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbis charged with sexual abuse of minor on plane
The Gazette (Montreal) - June 2, 1995
LOS ANGELES - The rabbi of a New York Hungarian Hasidic congregation and his assistant appeared before a federal magistrate yesterday on charges that they sexually molested a teenage girl on a flight between Australia and Los Angeles this week.
In a detailed affidavit accompanying the complaint, federal authorities allege that the rabbi, Israel Grunwald, fondled the minor and that his assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, sexually abused the 15-year-old.
Through their attorney, the two, who were arrested when they got off the plane Wednesday, denied any wrongdoing. "It did not happen," said attorney Mitchell Egers. "There's no question whatsoever about their innocence." He dismissed as inaccurate passages from the affidavit in which Friedlander is quoted as saying that he sexually touched the girl after she initiated the episode.
U.S. magistrate judge Carolyn Turchin set a $10,000 bail for Grunwald, a leader of the Pupa Hasidic sect and the head of a large congregation in Brooklyn.
1991 arrest
The bail hearing for Friedlander was continued until today after some confusion arose over the disposition of a 1991 arrest in which he was charged with sexual abuse.
There is no dispute about Friedlander's arrest in Montecello Township, N.Y., on Oct. 4 of that year, but one entry in the court records apparently stated the case was dismissed, while another said he was convicted and a sentence imposed.
In New York, Rabbi Bernard Freilich, administrator of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park, which represents 250 Jewish congregations, said Rabbi Grunwald was the son of Josef Grunwald, the late grand rabbi of the Pupa Hasidim, who transplanted Holocaust survivors from Pupa, Hungary, to Brooklyn after World War II.
Today, the sect has more than 12,000 members in Monsey, N.Y., Montreal, London and Jerusalem, as well as in Williamsburg and Borough Park in Brooklyn.
The nine-page affidavit submitted by an FBI agent quotes Friedlander, the teenager - a U.S. citizen who was travelling alone - and a passenger who says she witnessed the incident.
Changed seats
According to the complaint, Grunwald, 44, leaned over an empty seat to the girl, commented on her jewelry, touched her necklace and then fondled her breast.
At some point Friedlander, 44, exchanged seats with Grunwald. Then, the affidavit alleges that despite the girl's persistent protestations, Friedlander fondled and molested her while she was covered with a blanket, trying to sleep.
The affidavit also quotes a passenger from Michigan who, in a telephone interview with the FBI, said she saw a man she described as a rabbi lean over an empty seat and grope the teenager under her blanket for five to eight minutes.
After later talking to the teenager, the passenger alerted the flight crew, which contacted authorities in Los Angeles. The two men were arrested by airport police Wednesday morning as they disembarked from the plane.
Friedlander is charged with sexual abuse of a minor and Grunwald, scheduled to return to court June 21 for a preliminary hearing, is charged with abusive sexual contact.
The affidavit states that in comments to the FBI agent, Friedlander said the girl had guided his hand into her shirt and pants and "seemed" to want him to touch her.
"I did it, I shouldn't have done it. But it happened," Friedlander is quoted as saying.
WITH REPORTING BY NEW YORK TIMES
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi, Associate charged in sex case men accused of groping teen-age girl on flight from Australia
By Jaxon Van Debeken
Los Angeles Daily News - June 2, 1995
The chief rabbi of a Hungarian Hasidic congregation in New York and his assistant were charged Thursday in Los Angeles with groping a 15-year-old girl aboard an airplane flight from Australia.
Rabbi Israel Grunwald and Yehudah Friedlander, both 44, were taken into custody by FBI agents when the plane arrived at Los Angeles International Airport at noon Wednesday.
Friedlander faces a charge of sexual abuse of a minor and was being held until a bail hearing that was delayed till today. Grunwald was charged with a lesser offense of sexual contact with a minor and was released on $10,000 bond.
"There is no question about the innocence of these people," said Mitchell Egers, the attorney for both men. "They are absolutely innocent."
Grunwald, who heads a Hasidic movement in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and Friedlander, his assistant, were in Australia for conferences in Sydney and Melbourne.
Egers called Grunwald a "very important leader of a religious movement." Whenever the rabbi speaks, Egers said he deals with issues of morality.
"He is a very moral man and he deals with moral issues," he said.
Neither man entered a formal plea during the hearings, which were attended by dozens of rabbis from Los Angeles and New York in support of their colleagues.
Rabbi Bernard Freilich, administrator of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park, which represents 250 Jewish congregations, said Grunwald was the son of Josef Grunwald, the late Grand Rabbi of the Pupa Hasidim, who transplanted Holocaust survivors from Pupa, Hungary, to Brooklyn after World War II.
Today, the sect has more than 12,000 members in New York, Montreal, London and Jerusalem.
According to the affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Mark Van Steenburg in support of the charges, both men are accused of making advances to the girl while aboard United Airlines Flight 842 over the Pacific.
The 15-year-old American girl told Van Steenburg that she was traveling alone on the plane and was seated one empty seat away from Grunwald, who she said rubbed her arm and asked if she was cold.
The girl claimed he groped her breast and then got up and was replaced by Friedlander, who the girl said then groped her repeatedly, according to the affidavit.
The girl said she repeatedly resisted and attempted to fend off the advances. At one point, a woman who said she witnessed the conduct reported the trouble to the flight crew and later gave a statement to the FBI.
The passenger, identified as Sheila Myers of Michigan, said she was "horrified" as she watched a man grope the girl for "over 5 to 8 minutes," according to the affidavit.
Myers told Van Steenburg she saw the "jolt" when the man "shoved more of his arm under the blanket," according to the affidavit.
Friedlander, who gave a statement to the FBI, said the 15-year-old had rubbed his hand and invited him to make sexual advances to her. "I did it, I shouldn't have done it, but it happened," he told the agent.
Rabbi Peter Friedman, who is a friend and colleague of Grunwald, said he was stunned about the allegations. "I live two streets away from him. I am sure and positive the whole story is a false story."
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi's Aide Indicted in Molestation
By Bettina Boxal
Los Angeles Times - June 14, 1995
A New York rabbi's assistant accused of sexually molesting a 15-year-old girl during an airplane flight has been indicted on a charge of sexual abuse of a minor.
A federal grand jury issued the indictment in Los Angeles on Tuesday, charging that Yehudah Friedlander, 44, "knowingly engaged in a sexual act with a 15-year-old female" aboard a commercial airline flight from Australia to Los Angeles.
Friedlander, released on $200,000 bond and placed under house arrest in his Brooklyn home, is scheduled for arraignment Monday.
Friedlander and Rabbi Israel Grunwald, a leader of a New York-based Hasidic sect, were arrested May 31 as they got off the United Airlines flight at Los Angeles International Airport. Grunwald, who was charged with abusive sexual contact, was released on $10,000 bail.
Grunwald is scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing this month, although prosecutors also have the option of seeking an indictment against him.
"We're continuing our investigation" of Grunwald's case, Assistant U.S. Atty. Debra Yang said. She added that prosecutors had to move more quickly in Friedlander's case because he had been scheduled for a preliminary hearing this week.
Michael Abzug, Friedlander's attorney, could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.
Through their attorneys, both men have maintained their innocence, disputing a detailed affidavit filed with the complaint.
The document alleges that Grunwald fondled the teen-ager across an empty seat and that Friedlander, after exchanging seats with Grunwald, fondled the girl and molested her under a blanket as she attempted to sleep.
As quoted in the affidavit, the teen-ager told the FBI that she repeatedly tried to fend off the advances but did not call attention to them because she was embarrassed.
Another passenger interviewed by the FBI said she witnessed one of the men groping the girl and, after later talking to the teen-ager, alerted the flight crew, which radioed ahead to authorities.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Federal child sex charge has local tie
By TOM RUE
The River Reporter, June 15, 1995
MONTICELLO - An ultra-orthodox rebbe arrested in Los Angeles for sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl on a jetliner had a prior similar charge dismissed in Village of Monticello Justice Court, according to The New York Times and Cable News Network.
Yehuda Friedlander, now 44, was charged in 1991 with sexual abuse in the third degree, a misdemeanor. The charge was reportedly adjourned in contemplation of dismissal, and ultimately dismissed and sealed. It allegedly involved an offense against an adult woman.
At the time of the accusation, Friedlander reportedly managed a children's summer camp in Sullivan County.
Former village justice Mark Schulman was the judge who dismissed the charge against the rebbe, according to two sources familiar with the case. Local authorities declined to release any information, claiming the case was sealed by the justice court.
Friedlander was arrested on June 1 with Israel Grunwald, the chief rabbi of an Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Brooklyn, known as the Pupas, on May 29 after arriving on a flight from Australia. Friedlander is assistant rabbi of the same congregation. Both pled not guilty.
The girl, whose name was not reported, told authorities one rabbi reached inside her shirt and fondled her breasts during the flight, and the other pushed his hands into her underpants.
Federal magistrate Carolyn Turchin is Los Angeles denied Friedlander bail, stating she wanted to know more about the Monticello case first. Grunwald was released on a $10,000 bond, pending a June 21 appearance.
By Bettina Boxall and J. Michael
Los Angeles Times - June 2, 1997
A prominent New York rabbi and his assistant appeared before a federal magistrate Thursday on charges that they sexually molested a teen-age girl on a flight between Australia and Los Angeles this week.
In a detailed affidavit accompanying the complaint filed in Los Angeles, federal authorities allege that the ultra-orthodox rabbi, Israel Grunwald, fondled the minor and that his assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, sexually abused the 15-year-old.
Through their attorney, the two, who were arrested when they got off the plane Wednesday, denied any wrongdoing.
"It did not happen," attorney Mitchell W. Egers said. "There's no question whatsoever about their innocence."
He dismissed as inaccurate passages from the affidavit in which Friedlander is quoted as saying that he sexually touched the girl after she initiated the episode.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Turchin set $10,000 bail for Grunwald, a leader of the Pupa Hasidic sect and the head of a large congregation in Brooklyn.
The bail hearing for Friedlander was continued until this morning after some confusion arose over the disposition of a 1991 arrest in which he was charged with a sexual offense.
There is no apparent dispute about Friedlander's arrest in Montecello Township, N.Y., on Oct. 4, 1991, but one entry in the court records apparently stated that the case was dismissed, while another said that he was convicted and sentenced.
"I am aware there was some mix-up of some kind," Egers said. "We'll clarify it by tomorrow."
Egers, a Los Angeles attorney, said he was not familiar enough with New York law to know what the charge, sexual offense third degree, means.
"It may be something that really didn't amount to anything," he said. "I'll put the whole picture together by tomorrow."
About 15 supporters from New York and Los Angeles attended the court hearing, chanting from prayer books as they waited for the proceeding to begin.
In New York, the Orthodox community said Grunwald's incredulous followers were calling from around the world.
"He's a well respected person and very well liked," said Rabbi Bernard Freilich of the Council of Jewish Organizations in New York. "It's an impossible story. It's unbelievable. We're in total shock," Freilich said. "He's an ultra-orthodox rabbi. He wouldn't even speak to a girl, much less touch her."
The nine-page affidavit submitted by an FBI agent quotes Friedlander, the teen-ager-a U.S. citizen who was traveling alone-and a passenger who says she witnessed the incident.
According to the complaint, Grunwald, 44, leaned over an empty seat toward the girl, commented on her jewelry, touched her necklace and fondled her breast.
At some point, Friedlander, 44, exchanged seats with Grunwald. Then, the affidavit alleges that despite the girl's persistent protests, Friedlander fondled and molested her while she was covered with a blanket, trying to sleep.
The affidavit quotes a passenger from Michigan who, in a telephone interview with the FBI, said she saw a man she described as a rabbi lean over an empty seat and grope the teen-ager under her blanket for five to eight minutes.
After later talking to the teen-ager, the passenger alerted the flight crew, which contacted authorities in Los Angeles. The two men were arrested by airport police Wednesday morning as they left the plane.
Friedlander is charged with sexual abuse of a minor, and Grunwald, scheduled to return to court June 21 for a preliminary hearing, is charged with abusive sexual contact. The affidavit states that in comments to the FBI agent, Friedlander said the girl had guided his hand into her shirt and pants and "seemed" to want him to touch her.
"I did it, I shouldn't have done it. But it happened," Friedlander is quoted as saying.
Among the supporters who filled three rows of the courtroom during Thursday's hearing was Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin of Chabad of Los Angeles.
"Not only is he internationally known, but (Grunwald) and his assistant are married and reputable," Cunin said later. "The rabbi is a leader of thousands of thousands of thousands of followers both in America and Israel and Australia-all over the world. . . . I believe they'll be totally exonerated."
Grunwald, who had gone to Australia to lecture on the Talmud at the invitation of that country's Jewish community, comes from a long line of rabbinical scholars. Freilich said Grunwald's father was the grand rabbi of the Pupa sect in Hungary. Grunwald and his brother now lead the group.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi, assistant face sex-abuse charges
Washington Times - June 2, 1995
LOS ANGELES - A New York rabbi and his assistant were charged yesterday with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl aboard a flight from Australia.
Rabbi Israel Grunwald was charged with abusive sexual contact, and his assistant, Yehudah Friedlander, was charged with sexual abuse of a minor.
They were arrested Wednesday after the girl accused them of fondling her during a flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbis charged with sexual abuse of minor on plane
The Gazette (Montreal) - June 2, 1995
LOS ANGELES - The rabbi of a New York Hungarian Hasidic congregation and his assistant appeared before a federal magistrate yesterday on charges that they sexually molested a teenage girl on a flight between Australia and Los Angeles this week.
In a detailed affidavit accompanying the complaint, federal authorities allege that the rabbi, Israel Grunwald, fondled the minor and that his assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, sexually abused the 15-year-old.
Through their attorney, the two, who were arrested when they got off the plane Wednesday, denied any wrongdoing. "It did not happen," said attorney Mitchell Egers. "There's no question whatsoever about their innocence." He dismissed as inaccurate passages from the affidavit in which Friedlander is quoted as saying that he sexually touched the girl after she initiated the episode.
U.S. magistrate judge Carolyn Turchin set a $10,000 bail for Grunwald, a leader of the Pupa Hasidic sect and the head of a large congregation in Brooklyn.
1991 arrest
The bail hearing for Friedlander was continued until today after some confusion arose over the disposition of a 1991 arrest in which he was charged with sexual abuse.
There is no dispute about Friedlander's arrest in Montecello Township, N.Y., on Oct. 4 of that year, but one entry in the court records apparently stated the case was dismissed, while another said he was convicted and a sentence imposed.
In New York, Rabbi Bernard Freilich, administrator of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park, which represents 250 Jewish congregations, said Rabbi Grunwald was the son of Josef Grunwald, the late grand rabbi of the Pupa Hasidim, who transplanted Holocaust survivors from Pupa, Hungary, to Brooklyn after World War II.
Today, the sect has more than 12,000 members in Monsey, N.Y., Montreal, London and Jerusalem, as well as in Williamsburg and Borough Park in Brooklyn.
The nine-page affidavit submitted by an FBI agent quotes Friedlander, the teenager - a U.S. citizen who was travelling alone - and a passenger who says she witnessed the incident.
Changed seats
According to the complaint, Grunwald, 44, leaned over an empty seat to the girl, commented on her jewelry, touched her necklace and then fondled her breast.
At some point Friedlander, 44, exchanged seats with Grunwald. Then, the affidavit alleges that despite the girl's persistent protestations, Friedlander fondled and molested her while she was covered with a blanket, trying to sleep.
The affidavit also quotes a passenger from Michigan who, in a telephone interview with the FBI, said she saw a man she described as a rabbi lean over an empty seat and grope the teenager under her blanket for five to eight minutes.
After later talking to the teenager, the passenger alerted the flight crew, which contacted authorities in Los Angeles. The two men were arrested by airport police Wednesday morning as they disembarked from the plane.
Friedlander is charged with sexual abuse of a minor and Grunwald, scheduled to return to court June 21 for a preliminary hearing, is charged with abusive sexual contact.
The affidavit states that in comments to the FBI agent, Friedlander said the girl had guided his hand into her shirt and pants and "seemed" to want him to touch her.
"I did it, I shouldn't have done it. But it happened," Friedlander is quoted as saying.
WITH REPORTING BY NEW YORK TIMES
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi, Associate charged in sex case men accused of groping teen-age girl on flight from Australia
By Jaxon Van Debeken
Los Angeles Daily News - June 2, 1995
The chief rabbi of a Hungarian Hasidic congregation in New York and his assistant were charged Thursday in Los Angeles with groping a 15-year-old girl aboard an airplane flight from Australia.
Rabbi Israel Grunwald and Yehudah Friedlander, both 44, were taken into custody by FBI agents when the plane arrived at Los Angeles International Airport at noon Wednesday.
Friedlander faces a charge of sexual abuse of a minor and was being held until a bail hearing that was delayed till today. Grunwald was charged with a lesser offense of sexual contact with a minor and was released on $10,000 bond.
"There is no question about the innocence of these people," said Mitchell Egers, the attorney for both men. "They are absolutely innocent."
Grunwald, who heads a Hasidic movement in Borough Park, Brooklyn, and Friedlander, his assistant, were in Australia for conferences in Sydney and Melbourne.
Egers called Grunwald a "very important leader of a religious movement." Whenever the rabbi speaks, Egers said he deals with issues of morality.
"He is a very moral man and he deals with moral issues," he said.
Neither man entered a formal plea during the hearings, which were attended by dozens of rabbis from Los Angeles and New York in support of their colleagues.
Rabbi Bernard Freilich, administrator of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Borough Park, which represents 250 Jewish congregations, said Grunwald was the son of Josef Grunwald, the late Grand Rabbi of the Pupa Hasidim, who transplanted Holocaust survivors from Pupa, Hungary, to Brooklyn after World War II.
Today, the sect has more than 12,000 members in New York, Montreal, London and Jerusalem.
According to the affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Mark Van Steenburg in support of the charges, both men are accused of making advances to the girl while aboard United Airlines Flight 842 over the Pacific.
The 15-year-old American girl told Van Steenburg that she was traveling alone on the plane and was seated one empty seat away from Grunwald, who she said rubbed her arm and asked if she was cold.
The girl claimed he groped her breast and then got up and was replaced by Friedlander, who the girl said then groped her repeatedly, according to the affidavit.
The girl said she repeatedly resisted and attempted to fend off the advances. At one point, a woman who said she witnessed the conduct reported the trouble to the flight crew and later gave a statement to the FBI.
The passenger, identified as Sheila Myers of Michigan, said she was "horrified" as she watched a man grope the girl for "over 5 to 8 minutes," according to the affidavit.
Myers told Van Steenburg she saw the "jolt" when the man "shoved more of his arm under the blanket," according to the affidavit.
Friedlander, who gave a statement to the FBI, said the 15-year-old had rubbed his hand and invited him to make sexual advances to her. "I did it, I shouldn't have done it, but it happened," he told the agent.
Rabbi Peter Friedman, who is a friend and colleague of Grunwald, said he was stunned about the allegations. "I live two streets away from him. I am sure and positive the whole story is a false story."
____________________________________________________________________________________
Grand jury issues indictment of Chasid accused of sex abuse
By Tom Tugend
JTA - June 14, 1995
A
federal grand joy has returned a one-count indictment of sexual abuse
of a minor against Yehudah Friedlander, one of two Chasidic men arrested
earlier this month after an overnight flight from Australia to Los
Angeles.
Friedlander
is an assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald, who leads a small faction of
Pupa Chasidim in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn.
Friedlander
and Grunwald were arrested together, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra
Yang said it has not been determined whether an indictment would be
sought against the rabbi.
Friedlander is free on $200,000 bail and has been ordered to appear in court here on Monday.
At that time, he will hear the formal charges and enter a plea of innocence, according to his attorney, Michael Abzug.
If convicted, Friedlander could face a sentence of up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The
charges against the two men, contained in a nine-page FBI affidavit,
allege that during a plane ride from Australia to Los Angeles, Grunwald
and Friedlander fondled and groped a 15-year-old American girl, sitting
one seat away.
After
complaints from the girl and a woman who said she witnessed the
incident, the two men were arrested as they stepped off the plane in Los
Angeles.
Grunwald,
who would face the less serious charge of sexually touching a minor,
was released on $10,000 bail and returned to New York.
He was originally scheduled to appear in court on June 26, but his attorney, Mitchell Egers, said there would be a delay.
According
to the FBI affidavit, Friedlander told one agent that it was the girl
who initiated the advances. But he also admitted, "I shouldn't have done
it, but it happened."
Abzug
denied that Friedlander, the father of five children, had made such a
confession, adding that there was a question whether other statements
had been lawfully obtained.
The
accusations have been met with shock and disbelief in the Chasidic
community of Borough Park, where Grunwald leads some 100 followers in a
breakaway faction of the Pupa sect.
He
is the son of the late Josef Grunwald, the Hungarian-born founder and
grand rabbi of the 12,000-member Pupa movement. On the founder's death,
the title developed on his older son, Yakov Grunwald, who heads the main
Pupa community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
According
to the New York Jewish Week, there has been a longstanding feud between
the two brothers, with Israel Grunwald in Borough Park refusing to
recognize the authority of his older brother in Williamsburg.
____________________________________________________________________________________Rabbi's Aide Indicted in Molestation
By Bettina Boxal
Los Angeles Times - June 14, 1995
A New York rabbi's assistant accused of sexually molesting a 15-year-old girl during an airplane flight has been indicted on a charge of sexual abuse of a minor.
A federal grand jury issued the indictment in Los Angeles on Tuesday, charging that Yehudah Friedlander, 44, "knowingly engaged in a sexual act with a 15-year-old female" aboard a commercial airline flight from Australia to Los Angeles.
Friedlander, released on $200,000 bond and placed under house arrest in his Brooklyn home, is scheduled for arraignment Monday.
Friedlander and Rabbi Israel Grunwald, a leader of a New York-based Hasidic sect, were arrested May 31 as they got off the United Airlines flight at Los Angeles International Airport. Grunwald, who was charged with abusive sexual contact, was released on $10,000 bail.
Grunwald is scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing this month, although prosecutors also have the option of seeking an indictment against him.
"We're continuing our investigation" of Grunwald's case, Assistant U.S. Atty. Debra Yang said. She added that prosecutors had to move more quickly in Friedlander's case because he had been scheduled for a preliminary hearing this week.
Michael Abzug, Friedlander's attorney, could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.
Through their attorneys, both men have maintained their innocence, disputing a detailed affidavit filed with the complaint.
The document alleges that Grunwald fondled the teen-ager across an empty seat and that Friedlander, after exchanging seats with Grunwald, fondled the girl and molested her under a blanket as she attempted to sleep.
As quoted in the affidavit, the teen-ager told the FBI that she repeatedly tried to fend off the advances but did not call attention to them because she was embarrassed.
Another passenger interviewed by the FBI said she witnessed one of the men groping the girl and, after later talking to the teen-ager, alerted the flight crew, which radioed ahead to authorities.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Federal child sex charge has local tie
By TOM RUE
The River Reporter, June 15, 1995
MONTICELLO - An ultra-orthodox rebbe arrested in Los Angeles for sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl on a jetliner had a prior similar charge dismissed in Village of Monticello Justice Court, according to The New York Times and Cable News Network.
Yehuda Friedlander, now 44, was charged in 1991 with sexual abuse in the third degree, a misdemeanor. The charge was reportedly adjourned in contemplation of dismissal, and ultimately dismissed and sealed. It allegedly involved an offense against an adult woman.
At the time of the accusation, Friedlander reportedly managed a children's summer camp in Sullivan County.
Former village justice Mark Schulman was the judge who dismissed the charge against the rebbe, according to two sources familiar with the case. Local authorities declined to release any information, claiming the case was sealed by the justice court.
Friedlander was arrested on June 1 with Israel Grunwald, the chief rabbi of an Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Brooklyn, known as the Pupas, on May 29 after arriving on a flight from Australia. Friedlander is assistant rabbi of the same congregation. Both pled not guilty.
The girl, whose name was not reported, told authorities one rabbi reached inside her shirt and fondled her breasts during the flight, and the other pushed his hands into her underpants.
Federal magistrate Carolyn Turchin is Los Angeles denied Friedlander bail, stating she wanted to know more about the Monticello case first. Grunwald was released on a $10,000 bond, pending a June 21 appearance.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi's aide indicted in sex attack of girlJTA - June 16, 1995
LOS ANGELES (JTA) -- A federal grand jury on Tuesday returned a one-count indictment of sexual abuse of a minor against Yehudah Friedlander, an assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald, who leads a small faction of Pupa Chassidim in Boro Park, Brooklyn.
Friedlander and Grunwald were arrested together, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Yang said it has not been determined whether an indictment of the rabbi will be sought.
Friedlander is currently free on $200,000 bail and has been ordered to appear in L.A. court June 19 to hear the charges and enter a plea, which will be "not guilty," said his attorney, Michael Abzug.
If convicted, Friedlander could face a sentence of up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The charges against the two men, contained in a nine-page FBI affidavit, allege that during a plane ride from Australia to Los Angeles, Grunwald and Friedlander fondled and groped a 15-year old American girl, sitting one seat away.
A woman who said she witnessed the alleged attack convinced the girl to tell the flight crew, and the two men were arrested as they disembarked in Los Angeles.
Grunwald, who would face the lesser charge of sexually touching a minor, was released on $10,000 bail and returned to New York. He was to appear in court June 26, but his attorney, Mitchell Egers, said there will be a delay.
The FBI affidavit said Friedlander told one agent that it was the girl who initiated the advances. "I shouldn't have done it, but it happened," he reportedly said.
Abzug denied that Friedlander, the father of five children, had made the confession, and questioned whether other statements were obtained lawfully.
LOS ANGELES (JTA) -- A federal grand jury on Tuesday returned a one-count indictment of sexual abuse of a minor against Yehudah Friedlander, an assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald, who leads a small faction of Pupa Chassidim in Boro Park, Brooklyn.
Friedlander and Grunwald were arrested together, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Yang said it has not been determined whether an indictment of the rabbi will be sought.
Friedlander is currently free on $200,000 bail and has been ordered to appear in L.A. court June 19 to hear the charges and enter a plea, which will be "not guilty," said his attorney, Michael Abzug.
If convicted, Friedlander could face a sentence of up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The charges against the two men, contained in a nine-page FBI affidavit, allege that during a plane ride from Australia to Los Angeles, Grunwald and Friedlander fondled and groped a 15-year old American girl, sitting one seat away.
A woman who said she witnessed the alleged attack convinced the girl to tell the flight crew, and the two men were arrested as they disembarked in Los Angeles.
Grunwald, who would face the lesser charge of sexually touching a minor, was released on $10,000 bail and returned to New York. He was to appear in court June 26, but his attorney, Mitchell Egers, said there will be a delay.
The FBI affidavit said Friedlander told one agent that it was the girl who initiated the advances. "I shouldn't have done it, but it happened," he reportedly said.
Abzug denied that Friedlander, the father of five children, had made the confession, and questioned whether other statements were obtained lawfully.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Focus on crimes involving religious Jews sparks debateby DEBRA NUSSBAUM COHEN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency - June 16, 1995
NEW YORK -- Is it right to expect more moral behavior from those who present themselves as religious Jews than from those who do not?
The answer depends on which rabbi you ask.
The question arises in the wake of the indictment on sex crime charges of an aide to a prominent Chassidic rabbi and several instances of alleged breaches of ethical behavior by Jews who call themselves religious.
Among those whose morality has been called into question is a Reform rabbi, who has been the focus of community suspicion in the murder of his wife, though he has neither been arrested nor formally ruled out as a suspect.
On the other end of the religious spectrum are two leaders of a Chassidic community, who were arrested on charges of sexually molesting a teenage girl, and an Orthodox district attorney, whose financial abuses of his office and marital infidelities were recently exposed.
Such crimes are not limited to members of the rabbinate and Orthodox world, of course, but there is much greater interest in such cases when these individuals are involved.
Recognizing that even rabbis need explicit guidance about behaving ethically in financial and sexual matters in complicated times, the Reform movement updated its rabbinic ethics policy in 1991.
And a few months ago, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Assembly adopted its own rabbinic ethics policy on similar matters.
The Conservative movement has no formal policy, though its rules for filing and dealing with a complaint against a rabbi are in the process of being clarified, said Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the movement's Rabbinical Assembly.
For the mainstream Orthodox rabbinical group, the Rabbinical Council of America, the ethics policy is "the laws of the Torah," said Rabbi Steven Dworken, the group's executive vice president.
"We presuppose that an Orthodox rabbi doesn't need more of a policy than that," he said.
But the current case involving allegations that a rabbi of the Pupa Chassidic sect and his assistant sexually abused a teenage girl while flying from Australia to Los Angeles suggests that not every Orthodox Jew follows the Torah closely.
Rabbi Israel Grunwald, the leader of Congregation Toldos Yakov Yosef in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn, was charged with the federal crime of sexually touching a minor, while his assistant, Yehudah Friedlander, was indicted for sexual abuse.
The court was told the rabbi had admitted to federal agents that he had committed some of the acts, which the girl said included forcing his hand under her clothing and repeatedly touching her breast and her vagina despite her pleas not to, according to news reports.
Friedlander reportedly pleaded guilty in 1991 to the charge of third-degree sexual abuse in a Monticello, N.Y., case.
A federal magistrate, in initially denying bail, called Friedlander "a danger to the entire community." The rabbis' attorney told reporters that both denied the charges.
The case is clearly getting more attention in the media than it would have had the alleged assailants been non-religious.
Rabbis of several denominations interviewed said the attention is justified.
According to one Orthodox rabbi, Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, "It is legitimate to expect more" moral behavior from the observant. Still, "no system, no matter how good, will not have individual failures."
That Friedlander had allegedly pleaded guilty to sexual abuse several years earlier, yet retained a position of importance within his community, was also cause for concern, said Greenberg.
"Was that behavior treated with the seriousness it deserves, or did the `oldboys' close ranks behind him? It raises that question," said Greenberg, president of CLAL -- the Jewish Institute for Learning and Leadership.
"In the Orthodox community there is too much closing ranks and a `no one rock the boat' mentality. There is authoritarian leadership, and dissent is not tolerated. Criticism is seen as disloyalty," he said.
The spokesman for an ultra-reglious group, Agudath Israel of America, said he was not so certain that the focus on religious Jews' failings is legitimate.
"The attention paid to them because they're Chassidim is understandable but lamentable," said Rabbi Avi Shafran.
"What results from it is the reinforcement of the stereotype that Chassidim are hypocrites. The overwhelming majority of the observant world is people determined to keep to the stringencies of their faith," he added.
"For people to think Chassidim are this way, hiding a darker self, is embarrassing to all of us who wear beards and yarmulkes."
In another high-profile New York case, Rockland County District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz, an Orthodox Jew, quit his post last month shortly before pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts of defrauding the government in a deal he worked out with the U.S. Attorney.
Although married, a father and grandfather, Gribetz was partly done in by his former mistress, who went to the media with information about him. Gribetz aspired to being a congressman and was admired by many of his area's religious Jews.
Rabbi Moshe Tendler, Gribetz's longtime rabbi, said in an interview that he had often cited Gribetz in his speeches to illustrate how a devout Jew can remain faithful to the laws of kashrut and Shabbat while pursuing any career --even in law and politics.
But evidence police collected from Gribetz's ex-lover's home included whips, a dog collar, sex toys and pictures of Gribetz modeling women's clothing. Their three-year affair apparently included trips they took together funded by taxpayers' dollars.
Tendler, who organized a meeting of community rabbis to levy social sanctions against Gribetz just before his breaches became public, described the former politician's behavior as a "chilul haShem," or a desecration of God's name.
His behavior "emasculated our Torah. It reduces or minimizes the claim of Torah, that this is the divine law fit for the human experience. If someone who has been exposed to Torah does these things, what will people say?" said Tendler.
It is the reverse of what a religious Jew is supposed to do, that "the name of God shall be loved by your actions in Kiddush HaShem," said the rabbi,who is also a professor at Yeshiva University and a respected expert on medical ethics.
When a pulpit rabbi is implicated in a breach of ethics, as was the case with Rabbi Fred Neulander, the spiritual leader of Congregation M'kor Shalom, a Reform temple in Cherry Hill, N.J., it can shed light on the congregants' expectations of rabbinic behavior.
Neulander resigned from his position in March, four months after his wife Carol was bludgeoned to death. He has not been arrested, but the police have not ruled him out as a suspect in the ongoing investigation.
In addition, the widespread coverage it has received in the local media "has brought to light Neulander's involvement in marital infidelities," according to the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.
His congregation is reportedly still reeling in shock from the brutal murder and subsequent upheaval.
Should people be more profoundly disappointed by rabbis' failings than those of lay people?
According to Reform Rabbi Eugene Borowitz, "all Jews are expected to behave to a high standard of human conduct."
But "if that's true of all Jews, it's certainly true of clei kodesh," or holy vessels, said Borowitz, meaning that religious Jews have a responsibility for representing the highest ethical standards.
Borowitz is a professor of Jewish religious thought at Hebrew Union College, the Reform movement's seminary in New York City. He also authored a booktitled, "Reform Jewish Ethics and the Halacha."
Leila Gal Berner, a Reconstructionist rabbi and expert on Jewish ethics, said all religious Jews, and especially rabbis, have to guard against "the hubris that comes with the moral authority that people give them."
"When we allow ourselves to fall into a sense of self-importance, moral lapses can happen. In this situation, those involved could have thought that `no one would believe I would do such a thing,'" said Berner, director of the Center for Jewish Ethics at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pa.
"Part of the baggage that comes with being a rabbi or religious Jew is the kavod [honor] people give you," she added. "It's very nice, but also aburden. With that sense of hubris, then anything goes."
Jewish Telegraphic Agency - June 16, 1995
NEW YORK -- Is it right to expect more moral behavior from those who present themselves as religious Jews than from those who do not?
The answer depends on which rabbi you ask.
The question arises in the wake of the indictment on sex crime charges of an aide to a prominent Chassidic rabbi and several instances of alleged breaches of ethical behavior by Jews who call themselves religious.
Among those whose morality has been called into question is a Reform rabbi, who has been the focus of community suspicion in the murder of his wife, though he has neither been arrested nor formally ruled out as a suspect.
On the other end of the religious spectrum are two leaders of a Chassidic community, who were arrested on charges of sexually molesting a teenage girl, and an Orthodox district attorney, whose financial abuses of his office and marital infidelities were recently exposed.
Such crimes are not limited to members of the rabbinate and Orthodox world, of course, but there is much greater interest in such cases when these individuals are involved.
Recognizing that even rabbis need explicit guidance about behaving ethically in financial and sexual matters in complicated times, the Reform movement updated its rabbinic ethics policy in 1991.
And a few months ago, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Assembly adopted its own rabbinic ethics policy on similar matters.
The Conservative movement has no formal policy, though its rules for filing and dealing with a complaint against a rabbi are in the process of being clarified, said Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the movement's Rabbinical Assembly.
For the mainstream Orthodox rabbinical group, the Rabbinical Council of America, the ethics policy is "the laws of the Torah," said Rabbi Steven Dworken, the group's executive vice president.
"We presuppose that an Orthodox rabbi doesn't need more of a policy than that," he said.
But the current case involving allegations that a rabbi of the Pupa Chassidic sect and his assistant sexually abused a teenage girl while flying from Australia to Los Angeles suggests that not every Orthodox Jew follows the Torah closely.
Rabbi Israel Grunwald, the leader of Congregation Toldos Yakov Yosef in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn, was charged with the federal crime of sexually touching a minor, while his assistant, Yehudah Friedlander, was indicted for sexual abuse.
The court was told the rabbi had admitted to federal agents that he had committed some of the acts, which the girl said included forcing his hand under her clothing and repeatedly touching her breast and her vagina despite her pleas not to, according to news reports.
Friedlander reportedly pleaded guilty in 1991 to the charge of third-degree sexual abuse in a Monticello, N.Y., case.
A federal magistrate, in initially denying bail, called Friedlander "a danger to the entire community." The rabbis' attorney told reporters that both denied the charges.
The case is clearly getting more attention in the media than it would have had the alleged assailants been non-religious.
Rabbis of several denominations interviewed said the attention is justified.
According to one Orthodox rabbi, Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, "It is legitimate to expect more" moral behavior from the observant. Still, "no system, no matter how good, will not have individual failures."
That Friedlander had allegedly pleaded guilty to sexual abuse several years earlier, yet retained a position of importance within his community, was also cause for concern, said Greenberg.
"Was that behavior treated with the seriousness it deserves, or did the `oldboys' close ranks behind him? It raises that question," said Greenberg, president of CLAL -- the Jewish Institute for Learning and Leadership.
"In the Orthodox community there is too much closing ranks and a `no one rock the boat' mentality. There is authoritarian leadership, and dissent is not tolerated. Criticism is seen as disloyalty," he said.
The spokesman for an ultra-reglious group, Agudath Israel of America, said he was not so certain that the focus on religious Jews' failings is legitimate.
"The attention paid to them because they're Chassidim is understandable but lamentable," said Rabbi Avi Shafran.
"What results from it is the reinforcement of the stereotype that Chassidim are hypocrites. The overwhelming majority of the observant world is people determined to keep to the stringencies of their faith," he added.
"For people to think Chassidim are this way, hiding a darker self, is embarrassing to all of us who wear beards and yarmulkes."
In another high-profile New York case, Rockland County District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz, an Orthodox Jew, quit his post last month shortly before pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts of defrauding the government in a deal he worked out with the U.S. Attorney.
Although married, a father and grandfather, Gribetz was partly done in by his former mistress, who went to the media with information about him. Gribetz aspired to being a congressman and was admired by many of his area's religious Jews.
Rabbi Moshe Tendler, Gribetz's longtime rabbi, said in an interview that he had often cited Gribetz in his speeches to illustrate how a devout Jew can remain faithful to the laws of kashrut and Shabbat while pursuing any career --even in law and politics.
But evidence police collected from Gribetz's ex-lover's home included whips, a dog collar, sex toys and pictures of Gribetz modeling women's clothing. Their three-year affair apparently included trips they took together funded by taxpayers' dollars.
Tendler, who organized a meeting of community rabbis to levy social sanctions against Gribetz just before his breaches became public, described the former politician's behavior as a "chilul haShem," or a desecration of God's name.
His behavior "emasculated our Torah. It reduces or minimizes the claim of Torah, that this is the divine law fit for the human experience. If someone who has been exposed to Torah does these things, what will people say?" said Tendler.
It is the reverse of what a religious Jew is supposed to do, that "the name of God shall be loved by your actions in Kiddush HaShem," said the rabbi,who is also a professor at Yeshiva University and a respected expert on medical ethics.
When a pulpit rabbi is implicated in a breach of ethics, as was the case with Rabbi Fred Neulander, the spiritual leader of Congregation M'kor Shalom, a Reform temple in Cherry Hill, N.J., it can shed light on the congregants' expectations of rabbinic behavior.
Neulander resigned from his position in March, four months after his wife Carol was bludgeoned to death. He has not been arrested, but the police have not ruled him out as a suspect in the ongoing investigation.
In addition, the widespread coverage it has received in the local media "has brought to light Neulander's involvement in marital infidelities," according to the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.
His congregation is reportedly still reeling in shock from the brutal murder and subsequent upheaval.
Should people be more profoundly disappointed by rabbis' failings than those of lay people?
According to Reform Rabbi Eugene Borowitz, "all Jews are expected to behave to a high standard of human conduct."
But "if that's true of all Jews, it's certainly true of clei kodesh," or holy vessels, said Borowitz, meaning that religious Jews have a responsibility for representing the highest ethical standards.
Borowitz is a professor of Jewish religious thought at Hebrew Union College, the Reform movement's seminary in New York City. He also authored a booktitled, "Reform Jewish Ethics and the Halacha."
Leila Gal Berner, a Reconstructionist rabbi and expert on Jewish ethics, said all religious Jews, and especially rabbis, have to guard against "the hubris that comes with the moral authority that people give them."
"When we allow ourselves to fall into a sense of self-importance, moral lapses can happen. In this situation, those involved could have thought that `no one would believe I would do such a thing,'" said Berner, director of the Center for Jewish Ethics at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pa.
"Part of the baggage that comes with being a rabbi or religious Jew is the kavod [honor] people give you," she added. "It's very nice, but also aburden. With that sense of hubris, then anything goes."
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi's Aide Pleads Guilty in Sex ChargeREUTERS - November 2, 1995
A rabbi's assistant accused of sexually molesting a 15-year-old girl on a flight from Australia pleaded guilty to the charge on Tuesday, a day before his trial was set to begin, and faces up to two years in prison.
The assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, an aide to Rabbi Israel Grunwald of Brooklyn, is to be sentenced on Jan. 18, the United States Attorney's office here said.
A spokeswoman said Rabbi Friedlander had pleaded guilty to abusive sexual acts with a minor, which carries a maximum sentence of two years.
Rabbi Friedlander, 44, was arrested along with Rabbi Grunwald when their United Airlines plane landed in Los Angeles on May 31 after a flight from Melbourne, Australia.
Rabbi Grunwald was initially accused of touching the unidentified girl on the breast but charges against him were dropped. He heads Congregation Tuldos Yakov Yosef, a Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Borough Park, Brooklyn.
According to an F.B.I. affidavit, Rabbi Friedlander sat next to the girl, who was traveling alone. He groped her breast, put his hand inside her pants and touched her vagina.
A rabbi's assistant accused of sexually molesting a 15-year-old girl on a flight from Australia pleaded guilty to the charge on Tuesday, a day before his trial was set to begin, and faces up to two years in prison.
The assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, an aide to Rabbi Israel Grunwald of Brooklyn, is to be sentenced on Jan. 18, the United States Attorney's office here said.
A spokeswoman said Rabbi Friedlander had pleaded guilty to abusive sexual acts with a minor, which carries a maximum sentence of two years.
Rabbi Friedlander, 44, was arrested along with Rabbi Grunwald when their United Airlines plane landed in Los Angeles on May 31 after a flight from Melbourne, Australia.
Rabbi Grunwald was initially accused of touching the unidentified girl on the breast but charges against him were dropped. He heads Congregation Tuldos Yakov Yosef, a Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Borough Park, Brooklyn.
According to an F.B.I. affidavit, Rabbi Friedlander sat next to the girl, who was traveling alone. He groped her breast, put his hand inside her pants and touched her vagina.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi aide pleads guilty
Sun-Sentienel (Ft. Lauderdale) - November 2, 1995
LOS ANGELES - A rabbi's assistant has pleaded guilty to fondling a 15-year-old girl seated next to him on an airplane.
The girl told authorities that Yehudah Friedlander of New York molested her on a May 31 flight from Melbourne, Australia, to Los Angeles.
Friedlander, 44, entered his plea on Tuesday to a felony charge of sexually abusing a minor. He faces up to two years in prison when he is sentenced on Jan. 18.
Friedlander was an assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald of New York.
Rabbi Assistant Says He's Guilty of Sex Charges
Orlando Sentinel - November 2, 1995
A rabbi's assistant accused of sexually molesting a 15-year-old girl on a flight from Australia pleaded guilty a day before his trial was set to begin Wednesday. He faces up to two years in prison. Yehudah Friedlander, a father of five and personal assistant to Hasidic Rabbi Israel Grunwald of Brooklyn, N.Y., who had been in Australia to lecture on morality, will be sentenced Jan. 18, the U.S. Attorney's office said. A spokeswoman said he pleaded guilty to abusive sexual acts with a minor, which carries a maximum sentence of two years. Friedlander, 44, was arrested along with Grunwald when their United Airlines plane landed in Los Angeles last May 31 from Melbourne.
22-Month Sentence For Rabbi's Aide
REUTERS - January 20, 1996
A rabbi's assistant from Brooklyn was sentenced to 22 months in prison today for sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl who sat beside him during a flight from Australia to Los Angeles.
Yehudah Friedlander, wearing traditional Hasidic attire, dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief as he was jailed for groping the girl's breast and touching her genitals on a flight last May 31.
Your honor, I stand before you disgraced," Mr. Friedlander, 44, told Judge Spencer Letts of Federal District Court. "Nothing I can say, nothing I can do will change this. The pain and suffering I caused is deep and immeasurable."
Mr. Friedlander, the father of five, is a personal assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald, head of a Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Borough Park, Brooklyn.
Sun-Sentienel (Ft. Lauderdale) - November 2, 1995
LOS ANGELES - A rabbi's assistant has pleaded guilty to fondling a 15-year-old girl seated next to him on an airplane.
The girl told authorities that Yehudah Friedlander of New York molested her on a May 31 flight from Melbourne, Australia, to Los Angeles.
Friedlander, 44, entered his plea on Tuesday to a felony charge of sexually abusing a minor. He faces up to two years in prison when he is sentenced on Jan. 18.
Friedlander was an assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald of New York.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Orlando Sentinel - November 2, 1995
A rabbi's assistant accused of sexually molesting a 15-year-old girl on a flight from Australia pleaded guilty a day before his trial was set to begin Wednesday. He faces up to two years in prison. Yehudah Friedlander, a father of five and personal assistant to Hasidic Rabbi Israel Grunwald of Brooklyn, N.Y., who had been in Australia to lecture on morality, will be sentenced Jan. 18, the U.S. Attorney's office said. A spokeswoman said he pleaded guilty to abusive sexual acts with a minor, which carries a maximum sentence of two years. Friedlander, 44, was arrested along with Grunwald when their United Airlines plane landed in Los Angeles last May 31 from Melbourne.
____________________________________________________________________________________
REUTERS - January 20, 1996
A rabbi's assistant from Brooklyn was sentenced to 22 months in prison today for sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl who sat beside him during a flight from Australia to Los Angeles.
Yehudah Friedlander, wearing traditional Hasidic attire, dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief as he was jailed for groping the girl's breast and touching her genitals on a flight last May 31.
Your honor, I stand before you disgraced," Mr. Friedlander, 44, told Judge Spencer Letts of Federal District Court. "Nothing I can say, nothing I can do will change this. The pain and suffering I caused is deep and immeasurable."
Mr. Friedlander, the father of five, is a personal assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald, head of a Hungarian Hasidic congregation in Borough Park, Brooklyn.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Teenager Confronts Rabbi at Molestation Sentencing Hearing
By Bettina Boxall
Los Angeles Times - Janurary 19, 1996
Standing in court just a few feet from the man who molested her on an international airplane flight last spring, a teenage girl spoke Thursday of the shame, anger and loneliness that followed the incident.
"I was abused by the man sitting to the right of me," the 16-year-old Australian said during a sentencing hearing for Yehudah Friedlander in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. "He violated me in the very deepest possible way."
Friedlander, 44, a New York rabbi, pleaded guilty last fall to federal charges in the case, which shocked the Hasidic community and drew international headlines.
In comments in court and later to the press, the victim's father said the episode had turned his child from a "a gregarious, outspoken, friendly girl" at the top of her ninth-grade class to a tearful teenager unable to sleep, study or maintain her grades.
Addressing Friedlander, who wore the traditional Hasidic garb of black coat and skullcap, the girl's father chastised him: "You're a father of children. Until this gets cleared up in your consciousness, you have no right to be with children of any kind."
Friedlander, who faces a maximum of two years in prison for sexual abusive contact with a minor, will be sentenced today by Judge J. Spencer Letts.
Speaking on Friedlander's behalf, Rabbi Efroim Stein of New York urged Letts to return Friedlander to his community where, he said, shame and embarrassment would be far greater punishment than prison.
"There is contrition, there is remorse," Stein added, saying the nature of the accusation was abhorrent to Friedlander's community.
Friedlander and Rabbi Israel Grunwald, a leader of a New York-based Hasidic sect, were returning from a visit to the Australian Hasidic community, sitting in the same row with the girl on the flight, when the molestation occurred.
Prosecutors also originally charged Grunwald but later dropped the counts.
Rabbi's assistant jailed for sex abuse
Washington Times - Janurary 20, 1996
LOS ANGELES - A rabbi's aide was sentenced to 22 months in prison yesterday for sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl who sat beside him during a flight from Australia to Los Angeles.
Yehudah Friedlander, wearing traditional Hasidic dress, dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief as he was jailed for groping the girl's breast and touching her genitals on a flight May 31.
The father of five is a personal assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald, who runs a Hasidic community in New York City.
Rabbi's aide imprisoned
Sun-Sentinel - Janurary 20, 1996
LOS ANGELES - A rabbi's assistant was sentenced to 22 months in prison on Friday for sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl who sat beside him during a flight from Australia to Los Angeles.
Yehudah Friedlander, wearing traditional Hasidic dress, dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief as he was jailed for groping the girl's breast and touching her genitals on a flight last May 31.
Rabbi's Aide Gets 22 Months for Molesting Girl on Flight
Los Angeles Times - Janurary 20, 1996
A New York rabbi's assistant who pleaded guilty to sexually molesting a teenage girl on a flight across the Pacific Ocean was sentenced to 22 months in federal prison Friday, despite a sobbing plea for mercy from his wife and his own remorseful statement in court.
Yehudah Friedlander, assistant to New York Rabbi Israel Grunwald, stood silently as U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts announced the sentence in Los Angeles.
Friedlander made a brief statement to the court before hearing the judge's decision.
"My reputation and my life as I knew it is gone," said Friedlander, 44. "What I did to this victim and all other victims in this case, such as my family, is inexcusable."
Friedlander and Grunwald were arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in May on charges that they had molested the 16-year-old on a flight from Australia. Charges against Grunwald were dropped.
Friedlander is scheduled to begin serving his sentence Feb. 20.
Rabbi's assistant gets 22-month term
Los Angeles Daily News - Janurary 20, 1996
A Brooklyn rabbi's assistant was sentenced Friday to 22 months in prison for sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl in May as they sat next to each other on an airplane.
"Your honor, I stand before you disgraced," Yehudah Friedlander, 45, told the judge, while dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief.
"Nothing I can say, nothing I can do . . . will change this. The pain and suffering I caused is deep and immeasurable. I am deeply sorry."
The girl told a judge that nothing could remedy her feelings of intrusion and violation.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Yang said Friedlander sat next to the girl on the May 31 United Airlines flight from Australia to Los Angeles. During the trans-Pacific trip, he groped her breast, put his hand in her pants and put his finger in her vagina, according to an FBI affidavit.
Rabbi's aide gets 22 months for molestation
Tom Tugend
Jerusalem Post - Janurary 22, 1996
YEHUDAH Friedlander, a New York rabbi's assistant, has been sentenced to 22 months in a federal prison, after having pleaded guilty to sexually molesting a teenage girl during a flight from Australia to Los Angeles last May.
US District Judge J. Spencer Letts pronounced the sentence after hearing a remorseful statement from Friedlander, the father of five children, and a sobbing plea for mercy from his wife.
"My reputation and my life as I knew it is gone," said the 44-year-old Friedlander. "What I did to this victim and all the other victims in this case, such as my family, is inexcusable."
In a nine-page FBI affidavit, Friedlander was accused, in graphic detail, of fondling and groping a 15-year-old American girl during the flight.
Both he and Rabbi Israel Grunwald were arrested and handcuffed as they stepped off the plane in Los Angeles. Charges against Grunwald, who leads a faction of the Pupa hassidic movement in Borough Park, Brooklyn, were later dropped.
Case Name: UNITED STATES v. FRIEDLANDER
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. YEHUDA P. FRIEDLANDER, Defendant - Appellant.
1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 5322 *
NO. 96-50074
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
February 6, 1997, Argued and Submitted, Pasadena, California
March 18, 1997, FILED
Notice:
[*1] RULES OF THE NINTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS MAY LIMIT CITATION TO UNPUBLISHED OPINIONS. PLEASE REFER TO THE RULES OF THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THIS CIRCUIT.
Prior History:
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California. D.C. NO. CR-95-00516-JSL. J. Spencer Letts, District Judge, Presiding.
Subsequent History:
Reported in Table Case Format at: 110 F.3d 71, 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 10847.
Disposition: AFFIRMED.
Keywords: vulnerable, guideline, unusually, enhancement, counting, double, impermissible, criminal conduct, susceptible, sexual contact, sexual abuse, proportionality, wrongfulness, sentence, several times, vulnerability, unrelated
Counsel: For UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee: Nora M. Manella, AUSA, Los Angeles, CA. Debra A. Yang, Esq., USLA - OFFICE OF THE U.S. ATTORNEY, Criminal Division, Los Angeles, CA.
For YEHUDA P. FRIEDLANDER, Defendant - Appellant: Brian D.
McMahon, Esq., CRANE, RAYLE & LENNEMANN, Santa Monica, CA.
Richard P. Crane, Jr., Esq., CRANE & McCANN, Santa Monica, CA.
Judges:
Before: D.W. NELSON and TROTT, Circuit Judges, and BRYAN, District Judge. **
** Honorable Robert J. Bryan, United States District Judge for the Western
District of Washington, sitting by designation.
Opinion:
MEMORANDUM *
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and may not be cited to or by the courts of this circuit except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
[*2]
Yehuda P. Friedlander appeals his sentence imposed following his guilty plea to abusive sexual contact in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2243(a). At sentencing, the district court found that the victim was unusually vulnerable and adjusted the offense level upward two points pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1. Friedlander argues that this enhancement amounts to double counting because the age of the victim had already been considered under U.S.S.G. § 2A3.2. n1 n1 The Statutory Index references U.S.S.G § 2A3.4 for violations of 18 U.S.C. § 2244(a)(3). However, section 2A3.4 indicates that if the crime involves sexual abuse, rather than sexual contact, of a minor, U.S.S.G. § 2A3.2 should be applied.
We review the district court's application of the Sentencing Guidelines de novo. United States v. Caterino, 957 F.2d 681, 683 (9th Cir. 1992). We accord the district court's application of the Sentencing Guidelines to the facts due deference, and we review its findings of fact in the sentencing phase for clear error. [*3] United States v. Howard, 894 F.2d 1085, 1087 (9th Cir. 1990) (citing 18 U.S.C. § 3742(e)).
The offense of sexual abuse of a minor (18 U.S.C. § 2243(a)(1) and (2)) requires that the victim be between the ages of 12 and 16, and at least four years younger than the defendant. Here, the victim was 15 years of age, and the appellant was 44 years of age.
U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1(b) states as follows: "If the defendant knew or should have known that a victim of the offense was unusually vulnerable due to age, physical or mental condition, or that a victim was otherwise particularly susceptible to the criminal conduct, increase by 2 levels." Application Note 2 further explains this section:
Subsection (b) applies to offenses involving an unusually vulnerable victim in which the defendant knows or should have known of the victim's unusual vulnerability. The adjustment would apply, for example, in a fraud case where the defendant marketed an ineffective cancer cure or in a robbery where the defendant selected a handicapped victim. But it would not apply in a case where the defendant sold fraudulent securities by mail to the general public and one of the victims happened to be senile. [*4] Similarly, for example, a bank teller is not an unusually vulnerable victim solely by virtue of the teller's position in a bank.
Do not apply subsection (b) if the offense guideline specifically incorporates this factor. For example, if the offense guideline provides an enhancement for the age of the victim, this subsection would not be applied unless the victim was unusually vulnerable for reasons unrelated to age.
(emphasis added).
The text of a Guideline section and its associated application note are construed as consistent where possible. Stinson v. United States, 508 U.S. 36, 38, 123 L. Ed. 2d 598, 113 S. Ct. 1913 (1993) ("Commentary in the Guidelines Manual that interprets or explains a guideline is authoritative unless it violates the Constitution or a federal statute, or is inconsistent with, or a plainly erroneous reading of, that guideline."). See also United States v. Anderson, 942 F.2d 606, 613 (9th Cir. 1991) (en banc).
The overall policy of the Guidelines is to punish a defendant for "all harm that resulted from the acts and omission" for which he is responsible. United States v. Reese, 2 F.3d 870, 894-95 (9th Cir. 1993) (quoting U.S.S.G. [*5] § 1B1.3(a)(3)). When more than one type of harm is attributable to the defendant's conduct, enhancement is appropriate to carry out the Commission's goal of proportionality. Id. at 895. So- called "double counting" is permissible "when it is necessary to make the defendant's sentence reflect the full extent of the wrongfulness of his conduct." Id. Double counting is impermissible when expressly forbidden or when "one part of the Guidelines is applied to increase a defendant's punishment on account of a kind of harm that has already been fully accounted for by the application of another part of the Guidelines." Id.
We applied these principles in Reese where we upheld the district court's application of the aggravated assault guideline to enhance the offense level for a conviction of deprivation of civil rights by excessive force. Id. At 896; see also United States v. Haggard, 41 F. 3d 1320, 1327 (9th Cir. 1994) (section 3A1.1 accounts for the defendant's choice of victims and allows extra punishment for defendants that prey on unusually vulnerable victims); United States v. Hershkowitz, 968 F.2d 1503, 1505-06 (2d Cir. 1992) (vulnerable victim enhancement [*6] not impermissible double counting because not every civil rights violation involves a victim who is "particularly susceptible to the criminal conduct").
The district court made numerous findings of fact in this case: The offense took place on an airplane; the female victim was traveling alone from Australia to the United States; the seats were assigned; the victim could not leave the plane; Friedlander was a religious leader, "clothed with the stamp of righteousness" and the victim did not expect such conduct from him; the victim had been touched by Friedlander and by his companion, a rabbi, several times previously; the victim tried to stop the advances several times; the victim tried to hide from Friedlander; and the victim did not call for help because she was too embarrassed. The findings of fact of the district court are not disputed by the parties and are supported by ample evidence. Based on these findings, the district judge increased the offense level by two under U. S.S.G. § 3A1.1 because the victim was unusually vulnerable.
Friedlander argues that the district court engaged in impermissible double counting by the two-point enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1. He contends [*7] that the victim was vulnerable due to her age, which was already part of the basis for the offense level pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2A3.2. Friedlander argues that U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1 presents an either-or choice (age or unusual vulnerability), but it does not anticipate use of both factors.
The victim's age alone does not fully reflect the wrongfulness of Friedlander's conduct. Because of the circumstances of this offense, the victim was particularly susceptible to criminal conduct, and was unusually vulnerable for reasons unrelated to age. Therefore, the district court's application of the vulnerable victim enhancement does not amount to double counting. Such application merely carries out the Sentencing Commission's goal of proportionality. The trial court's application of the Sentencing Guidelines to the facts was appropriate. We affirm the district court's sentence.
AFFIRMED.
By Bettina Boxall
Los Angeles Times - Janurary 19, 1996
Standing in court just a few feet from the man who molested her on an international airplane flight last spring, a teenage girl spoke Thursday of the shame, anger and loneliness that followed the incident.
"I was abused by the man sitting to the right of me," the 16-year-old Australian said during a sentencing hearing for Yehudah Friedlander in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. "He violated me in the very deepest possible way."
Friedlander, 44, a New York rabbi, pleaded guilty last fall to federal charges in the case, which shocked the Hasidic community and drew international headlines.
In comments in court and later to the press, the victim's father said the episode had turned his child from a "a gregarious, outspoken, friendly girl" at the top of her ninth-grade class to a tearful teenager unable to sleep, study or maintain her grades.
Addressing Friedlander, who wore the traditional Hasidic garb of black coat and skullcap, the girl's father chastised him: "You're a father of children. Until this gets cleared up in your consciousness, you have no right to be with children of any kind."
Friedlander, who faces a maximum of two years in prison for sexual abusive contact with a minor, will be sentenced today by Judge J. Spencer Letts.
Speaking on Friedlander's behalf, Rabbi Efroim Stein of New York urged Letts to return Friedlander to his community where, he said, shame and embarrassment would be far greater punishment than prison.
"There is contrition, there is remorse," Stein added, saying the nature of the accusation was abhorrent to Friedlander's community.
Friedlander and Rabbi Israel Grunwald, a leader of a New York-based Hasidic sect, were returning from a visit to the Australian Hasidic community, sitting in the same row with the girl on the flight, when the molestation occurred.
Prosecutors also originally charged Grunwald but later dropped the counts.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Washington Times - Janurary 20, 1996
LOS ANGELES - A rabbi's aide was sentenced to 22 months in prison yesterday for sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl who sat beside him during a flight from Australia to Los Angeles.
Yehudah Friedlander, wearing traditional Hasidic dress, dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief as he was jailed for groping the girl's breast and touching her genitals on a flight May 31.
The father of five is a personal assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald, who runs a Hasidic community in New York City.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Sun-Sentinel - Janurary 20, 1996
LOS ANGELES - A rabbi's assistant was sentenced to 22 months in prison on Friday for sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl who sat beside him during a flight from Australia to Los Angeles.
Yehudah Friedlander, wearing traditional Hasidic dress, dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief as he was jailed for groping the girl's breast and touching her genitals on a flight last May 31.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Los Angeles Times - Janurary 20, 1996
A New York rabbi's assistant who pleaded guilty to sexually molesting a teenage girl on a flight across the Pacific Ocean was sentenced to 22 months in federal prison Friday, despite a sobbing plea for mercy from his wife and his own remorseful statement in court.
Yehudah Friedlander, assistant to New York Rabbi Israel Grunwald, stood silently as U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts announced the sentence in Los Angeles.
Friedlander made a brief statement to the court before hearing the judge's decision.
"My reputation and my life as I knew it is gone," said Friedlander, 44. "What I did to this victim and all other victims in this case, such as my family, is inexcusable."
Friedlander and Grunwald were arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in May on charges that they had molested the 16-year-old on a flight from Australia. Charges against Grunwald were dropped.
Friedlander is scheduled to begin serving his sentence Feb. 20.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Rabbi's assistant gets 22-month term
Los Angeles Daily News - Janurary 20, 1996
A Brooklyn rabbi's assistant was sentenced Friday to 22 months in prison for sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl in May as they sat next to each other on an airplane.
"Your honor, I stand before you disgraced," Yehudah Friedlander, 45, told the judge, while dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief.
"Nothing I can say, nothing I can do . . . will change this. The pain and suffering I caused is deep and immeasurable. I am deeply sorry."
The girl told a judge that nothing could remedy her feelings of intrusion and violation.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Yang said Friedlander sat next to the girl on the May 31 United Airlines flight from Australia to Los Angeles. During the trans-Pacific trip, he groped her breast, put his hand in her pants and put his finger in her vagina, according to an FBI affidavit.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Tom Tugend
Jerusalem Post - Janurary 22, 1996
YEHUDAH Friedlander, a New York rabbi's assistant, has been sentenced to 22 months in a federal prison, after having pleaded guilty to sexually molesting a teenage girl during a flight from Australia to Los Angeles last May.
US District Judge J. Spencer Letts pronounced the sentence after hearing a remorseful statement from Friedlander, the father of five children, and a sobbing plea for mercy from his wife.
"My reputation and my life as I knew it is gone," said the 44-year-old Friedlander. "What I did to this victim and all the other victims in this case, such as my family, is inexcusable."
In a nine-page FBI affidavit, Friedlander was accused, in graphic detail, of fondling and groping a 15-year-old American girl during the flight.
Both he and Rabbi Israel Grunwald were arrested and handcuffed as they stepped off the plane in Los Angeles. Charges against Grunwald, who leads a faction of the Pupa hassidic movement in Borough Park, Brooklyn, were later dropped.
____________________________________________________________________________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. YEHUDA P. FRIEDLANDER, Defendant - Appellant.
1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 5322 *
NO. 96-50074
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
February 6, 1997, Argued and Submitted, Pasadena, California
March 18, 1997, FILED
Notice:
[*1] RULES OF THE NINTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS MAY LIMIT CITATION TO UNPUBLISHED OPINIONS. PLEASE REFER TO THE RULES OF THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THIS CIRCUIT.
Prior History:
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California. D.C. NO. CR-95-00516-JSL. J. Spencer Letts, District Judge, Presiding.
Subsequent History:
Reported in Table Case Format at: 110 F.3d 71, 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 10847.
Disposition: AFFIRMED.
Keywords: vulnerable, guideline, unusually, enhancement, counting, double, impermissible, criminal conduct, susceptible, sexual contact, sexual abuse, proportionality, wrongfulness, sentence, several times, vulnerability, unrelated
Counsel: For UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee: Nora M. Manella, AUSA, Los Angeles, CA. Debra A. Yang, Esq., USLA - OFFICE OF THE U.S. ATTORNEY, Criminal Division, Los Angeles, CA.
For YEHUDA P. FRIEDLANDER, Defendant - Appellant: Brian D.
McMahon, Esq., CRANE, RAYLE & LENNEMANN, Santa Monica, CA.
Richard P. Crane, Jr., Esq., CRANE & McCANN, Santa Monica, CA.
Judges:
Before: D.W. NELSON and TROTT, Circuit Judges, and BRYAN, District Judge. **
** Honorable Robert J. Bryan, United States District Judge for the Western
District of Washington, sitting by designation.
Opinion:
MEMORANDUM *
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and may not be cited to or by the courts of this circuit except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
[*2]
Yehuda P. Friedlander appeals his sentence imposed following his guilty plea to abusive sexual contact in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2243(a). At sentencing, the district court found that the victim was unusually vulnerable and adjusted the offense level upward two points pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1. Friedlander argues that this enhancement amounts to double counting because the age of the victim had already been considered under U.S.S.G. § 2A3.2. n1 n1 The Statutory Index references U.S.S.G § 2A3.4 for violations of 18 U.S.C. § 2244(a)(3). However, section 2A3.4 indicates that if the crime involves sexual abuse, rather than sexual contact, of a minor, U.S.S.G. § 2A3.2 should be applied.
We review the district court's application of the Sentencing Guidelines de novo. United States v. Caterino, 957 F.2d 681, 683 (9th Cir. 1992). We accord the district court's application of the Sentencing Guidelines to the facts due deference, and we review its findings of fact in the sentencing phase for clear error. [*3] United States v. Howard, 894 F.2d 1085, 1087 (9th Cir. 1990) (citing 18 U.S.C. § 3742(e)).
The offense of sexual abuse of a minor (18 U.S.C. § 2243(a)(1) and (2)) requires that the victim be between the ages of 12 and 16, and at least four years younger than the defendant. Here, the victim was 15 years of age, and the appellant was 44 years of age.
U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1(b) states as follows: "If the defendant knew or should have known that a victim of the offense was unusually vulnerable due to age, physical or mental condition, or that a victim was otherwise particularly susceptible to the criminal conduct, increase by 2 levels." Application Note 2 further explains this section:
Subsection (b) applies to offenses involving an unusually vulnerable victim in which the defendant knows or should have known of the victim's unusual vulnerability. The adjustment would apply, for example, in a fraud case where the defendant marketed an ineffective cancer cure or in a robbery where the defendant selected a handicapped victim. But it would not apply in a case where the defendant sold fraudulent securities by mail to the general public and one of the victims happened to be senile. [*4] Similarly, for example, a bank teller is not an unusually vulnerable victim solely by virtue of the teller's position in a bank.
Do not apply subsection (b) if the offense guideline specifically incorporates this factor. For example, if the offense guideline provides an enhancement for the age of the victim, this subsection would not be applied unless the victim was unusually vulnerable for reasons unrelated to age.
(emphasis added).
The text of a Guideline section and its associated application note are construed as consistent where possible. Stinson v. United States, 508 U.S. 36, 38, 123 L. Ed. 2d 598, 113 S. Ct. 1913 (1993) ("Commentary in the Guidelines Manual that interprets or explains a guideline is authoritative unless it violates the Constitution or a federal statute, or is inconsistent with, or a plainly erroneous reading of, that guideline."). See also United States v. Anderson, 942 F.2d 606, 613 (9th Cir. 1991) (en banc).
The overall policy of the Guidelines is to punish a defendant for "all harm that resulted from the acts and omission" for which he is responsible. United States v. Reese, 2 F.3d 870, 894-95 (9th Cir. 1993) (quoting U.S.S.G. [*5] § 1B1.3(a)(3)). When more than one type of harm is attributable to the defendant's conduct, enhancement is appropriate to carry out the Commission's goal of proportionality. Id. at 895. So- called "double counting" is permissible "when it is necessary to make the defendant's sentence reflect the full extent of the wrongfulness of his conduct." Id. Double counting is impermissible when expressly forbidden or when "one part of the Guidelines is applied to increase a defendant's punishment on account of a kind of harm that has already been fully accounted for by the application of another part of the Guidelines." Id.
We applied these principles in Reese where we upheld the district court's application of the aggravated assault guideline to enhance the offense level for a conviction of deprivation of civil rights by excessive force. Id. At 896; see also United States v. Haggard, 41 F. 3d 1320, 1327 (9th Cir. 1994) (section 3A1.1 accounts for the defendant's choice of victims and allows extra punishment for defendants that prey on unusually vulnerable victims); United States v. Hershkowitz, 968 F.2d 1503, 1505-06 (2d Cir. 1992) (vulnerable victim enhancement [*6] not impermissible double counting because not every civil rights violation involves a victim who is "particularly susceptible to the criminal conduct").
The district court made numerous findings of fact in this case: The offense took place on an airplane; the female victim was traveling alone from Australia to the United States; the seats were assigned; the victim could not leave the plane; Friedlander was a religious leader, "clothed with the stamp of righteousness" and the victim did not expect such conduct from him; the victim had been touched by Friedlander and by his companion, a rabbi, several times previously; the victim tried to stop the advances several times; the victim tried to hide from Friedlander; and the victim did not call for help because she was too embarrassed. The findings of fact of the district court are not disputed by the parties and are supported by ample evidence. Based on these findings, the district judge increased the offense level by two under U. S.S.G. § 3A1.1 because the victim was unusually vulnerable.
Friedlander argues that the district court engaged in impermissible double counting by the two-point enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1. He contends [*7] that the victim was vulnerable due to her age, which was already part of the basis for the offense level pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2A3.2. Friedlander argues that U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1 presents an either-or choice (age or unusual vulnerability), but it does not anticipate use of both factors.
The victim's age alone does not fully reflect the wrongfulness of Friedlander's conduct. Because of the circumstances of this offense, the victim was particularly susceptible to criminal conduct, and was unusually vulnerable for reasons unrelated to age. Therefore, the district court's application of the vulnerable victim enhancement does not amount to double counting. Such application merely carries out the Sentencing Commission's goal of proportionality. The trial court's application of the Sentencing Guidelines to the facts was appropriate. We affirm the district court's sentence.
AFFIRMED.
____________________________________________________________________________________
METROPOLITAN DESK
Charges Against Rabbi Dropped
By NORIMITSU ONISHI (NYT) 311 words
New York Times - July 7, 1995
Federal prosecutors have dismissed charges against one of two rabbis from Borough Park, Brooklyn, who were accused of sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl during a trans-Pacific flight in May, officials said yesterday.
The United States Attorney's office in Los Angeles dropped the complaint of abusive sexual misconduct against Rabbi Israel Grunwald, 44, "without prejudice" -- meaning that the investigation will continue and the charge can be refiled, according to a statement from Assistant United States Attorney Debra W. Yang.
Donald Etra, the rabbi's lawyer, said yesterday, "My client realizes that the charge can be refiled, but the important point is that he is without fault and completely innocent of these charges."
Under Federal law, the Government had until June 29 to indict Rabbi Grunwald or drop the charges.
Rabbi Grunwald, the head of Congregation Tuldos Yakov Yosef, a Hungarian Hasidic congregation, and his assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, 44, were returning to Los Angeles from a lecture tour in Australia on May 31 when the incident occurred aboard a United Air Lines plane.
A 15-year-old girl, seated in the same row as the two men, told authorities that Rabbi Grunwald first reached under her shirt and touched her breast. She said Rabbi Friedlander later exchanged seats with his colleague and repeatedly touched her breast and her vagina while the cabin lights were dimmed during movies and rest periods.
Rabbi Friedlander, who was indicted last month on the more serious charge of sexual abuse of a minor, was placed under house arrest in New York. Federal agents who interviewed Rabbi Friedlander said that he admitted some of the acts, but contended that the girl had encouraged him.
His trial has been set for Aug. 8, Mr. Etra said.
Rabbi Friedlander's lawyer, Michael Abzug, could not be reached for comment.
Charges Against Rabbi Dropped
By NORIMITSU ONISHI (NYT) 311 words
New York Times - July 7, 1995
Federal prosecutors have dismissed charges against one of two rabbis from Borough Park, Brooklyn, who were accused of sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl during a trans-Pacific flight in May, officials said yesterday.
The United States Attorney's office in Los Angeles dropped the complaint of abusive sexual misconduct against Rabbi Israel Grunwald, 44, "without prejudice" -- meaning that the investigation will continue and the charge can be refiled, according to a statement from Assistant United States Attorney Debra W. Yang.
Donald Etra, the rabbi's lawyer, said yesterday, "My client realizes that the charge can be refiled, but the important point is that he is without fault and completely innocent of these charges."
Under Federal law, the Government had until June 29 to indict Rabbi Grunwald or drop the charges.
Rabbi Grunwald, the head of Congregation Tuldos Yakov Yosef, a Hungarian Hasidic congregation, and his assistant, Rabbi Yehudah Friedlander, 44, were returning to Los Angeles from a lecture tour in Australia on May 31 when the incident occurred aboard a United Air Lines plane.
A 15-year-old girl, seated in the same row as the two men, told authorities that Rabbi Grunwald first reached under her shirt and touched her breast. She said Rabbi Friedlander later exchanged seats with his colleague and repeatedly touched her breast and her vagina while the cabin lights were dimmed during movies and rest periods.
Rabbi Friedlander, who was indicted last month on the more serious charge of sexual abuse of a minor, was placed under house arrest in New York. Federal agents who interviewed Rabbi Friedlander said that he admitted some of the acts, but contended that the girl had encouraged him.
His trial has been set for Aug. 8, Mr. Etra said.
Rabbi Friedlander's lawyer, Michael Abzug, could not be reached for comment.
____________________________________________________________________________________
December 16, 2012
 |
| Rabbi Yehuda Leib Friedlander - New York Sex Offender's Registry 12-16-2012 |
____________________________________________________________________________________
FAIR USE NOTICE
Some of the information on The Awareness Center's web pages may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.
We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml . If you wish to use copyrighted material from this update for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Some of the information on The Awareness Center's web pages may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.
We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml . If you wish to use copyrighted material from this update for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
____________________________________________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment