Case of Rabbi Nechemya Weberman

Case of Rabbi Nechemya Weberman

Brooklyn, NY

 NOTE: Rabbi Nechemy Weberman was convicted on 60 counts relating to the sexual abuse of a teen he counseled.  He was sentenced to 103 years in prison.  This page is currently being updated.

  The Awareness Center wants to thank the survivor and those who supported her for the tenacity to let the truth be heard. 

Nechemya Weberman, was arrested and charged and convicted after being accused of forcing a girl, who was sent to him for counseling at the age of 12, to perform oral sex on him over a period of three years.  
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Table of Contents

2012

1. For Ultra-Orthodox in Abuse Cases, Prosecutor Has Different Rules (05/11/2012)
2. For Ultra-Orthodox, Clash Over Allegations (05/16/2012)
3. Ultra-Orthodox Men Charged With Trying to Silence Accuser (06/21/2012)
4. Ultra-Orthodox Jews Accused of Intimidating Victim in Sex Abuse Case
5. (06/21/2012)
6. 4 Men Charged With Intimidating Witnesses In Connection With Rabbi’s Sex Abuse Case (06/21/2012)
   
7. Brooklyn men arraigned in witness-tampering case (06/21/2012)
8. 4 ultra-Orthodox men charged with trying to extort witness in rabbi sex-abuse case  (06/21/2012)
9. Three men accused of trying to buy victim’s silence in rabbi sex abuse case  (06/22/2012)
10. Ultra-Orthodox Men Charged With Trying to Silence Accuser  (06/22/2012)
11. Most Brooklyn Abuse Cases Involve Kin  (07/16/2012)
12. Sexual Abuse Trial of Brooklyn Man Begins (11/26/2012)
13. Teen Testifies in sex trial of ultra-Orthodox Jewish leader  (11/27/2012)
14. Accused molester Nechemya Weberman appears to menacingly stare at teenage accuser through glass door (11/28/2012)
15. Accuser in Orthodox Abuse Trial Testified out of ‘Responsibility’ (11/30/2012)
16. Four orthodox Jewish men arrested after allegedly photographing sex abuse victim on witness stand (11/30/2012)
17. 4 charged over photos of teen accuser at N.Y. sex trial  (11/30/2012)
18. Intimidation of Orthodox Jewish Teen Continues at Sexual Abuse Trial (11/30/2012)
19. SICK SEX SHOCKER: I had to reenact porn, alleged teen victim of Hasidic leader Nechemya Weberman testifies (12/01/2012)
20. Mother says she paid $12,800 to ultra-Orthodox Jewish "counselor" who allegedly molested her daughter (12/04/2012)
21. Hasidic counselor, Nechemya Weberman, suspected of sexual assault will testify
22. (12/04/2012)
23. Weberman testifies he 'never ever' sexually assaulted young girl, says he didn’t know anything about lingerie bought by charity he founded (12/05/2012)
24. Brooklyn criminal courtroom resembles nightclub as members of the Satmar Hasidic Jewish sect show up to support Nechemya Weberman (12/05/2012)
25. Nechemya Weberman Takes Stand In Sex Abuse Trial, Denies Inappropriate Relations With Teen (12/05/2012)
26. Protesters lash out at how cases are being handled in the Satmar Community (12/05/2012)
27. Hasidic counselor accused of molesting teen to testify (12/05/2012)  
28. Hasidic Man Denies Abuse of Young Girl He Counseled (12/05/2012)  
29. Weberman teen abuse trial questions Jewish group's customs (12/06/2012) 
30. Profitable not-for-profits (12/07/2012)    
31. After Nechemya Weberman, Hasidic Satmar sect considers sending rebel teens away  (12/10/2012)  
32. Nechemya Weberman was convicted of 60 counts  (12/10/2012)  
33. Jury returns in abuse case of NY counselor  (12/10/2012)  
34. NY Orthodox Counselor Convicted of Sex Abuse (12/10/2012)  
35. Hasidic Man Found Guilty of Sexually Abusing Young Girl (12/10/2012)   
36. Jury finds Nechemya Weberman, Satmar Hasidic leader, guilty of molesting teenage girl he was paid to counsel (12/10/2012)  
    
37. Nechemya Weberman Convicted in Sex Case (12/10/2012)   
38. NY Orthodox counselor convicted of sex abuse (12/10/2012)  
39. Hasidic leader convicted after repeatedly forcing himself on girl he was counseling (12/10/2012)  
40. Abuse Verdict Topples a Hasidic Wall of Secrecy (12/10/2012)  
41. Rabbinical Council of America on Guilty Verdict of Orthodox Child Molester
    (12/10/2012) 
42. Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg assaulted after Nechemya Weberman’s conviction
      (12/11/2012)
43. Justice in Williamsburg  (12/11/2012) 
44. Hasidic Sex Abuse Victims Advocate Hit With Bleach   (12/12/2012)
45. Confronting Abuse (12/14/2012) 
46. Was Nechemya Weberman on Trial — or Satmars? (12/17/2012) 
47. Consider This: No more room under the carpet (12/27/2012)
48. Nechemya Weberman's Unique Band of Relatives (12/28/2012)
49. Orthodox Jews Face a Moment of Reckoning (12/30/2012) 
50. Witness Statement  (12/30/2012) 

2013

1. Satmar Hasidic counselor Nechemya Weberman gets 103 years for sexually abusing teen girl (01/22/2013)
2. Hasidic Therapist Sentenced to 103 Years in Sexual Abuse Case (01/22/2013)

Also See: 

1. Case of Meilech Schnitzler
2. The quasi-orthodox Jewish world compared to the "BITE" Model of Cult Mind Control (11/06/2013)

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For Ultra-Orthodox in Abuse Cases, Prosecutor Has Different Rules

Ray Rivera and Sharon Otterman 

Jo Craven McGinty, Griff Palmer and Tom Torok contributed reporting

New York Times - May 10, 2012

Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, center, in his 1994 bid for attorney general, next to his wife, Patricia.

An influential rabbi came last summer to the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, with a message: his ultra-Orthodox advocacy group was instructing adherent Jews that they could report allegations of child sexual abuse to district attorneys or the police only if a rabbi first determined that the suspicions were credible. 

The pronouncement was a blunt challenge to Mr. Hynes’s authority. But the district attorney “expressed no opposition or objection,” the rabbi, Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, recalled. 

In fact, when Mr. Hynes held a Hanukkah party at his office in December, he invited many ultra-Orthodox rabbis affiliated with the advocacy group, Agudath Israel of America. He even chose Rabbi Zwiebel, the group’s executive vice president, as keynote speaker at the party. 

Mr. Hynes has won election six times as district attorney thanks in part to support from ultra-Orthodox rabbis, who lead growing communities in neighborhoods like Borough Park and Crown Heights. But in recent years, as allegations of child sexual abuse have shaken the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, victims’ rights groups have expressed concern that he is not vigorously pursuing these cases because of his deep ties to the rabbis. 

Many of the rabbis consider sexual abuse accusations to be community matters best handled by rabbinical authorities, who often do not report their conclusions to the police.

In 2009, as criticism of his record mounted, Mr. Hynes set up a program to reach out to ultra-Orthodox victims of child sexual abuse. Called Kol Tzedek (Voice of Justice in Hebrew), the program is intended to “ensure safety in the community and to fully support those affected by abuse,” his office said. 

In recent months, Mr. Hynes and his aides have said the program has contributed to an effective crackdown on child sexual abuse among ultra-Orthodox Jews, saying it had led to 95 arrests involving more than 120 victims. 

But Mr. Hynes has taken the highly unusual step of declining to publicize the names of defendants prosecuted under the program — even those convicted. At the same time, he continues to publicize allegations of child sexual abuse against defendants who are not ultra-Orthodox Jews. 

This policy of shielding defendants’ names because of their religious status is not followed by the other four district attorneys in New York City, and has rarely, if ever, been adopted by prosecutors around the country. 

Some sex-crime experts and former prosecutors said the policy contributed to a culture of secrecy in ultra-Orthodox communities, which made it harder to curb sexual abuse. 

Mr. Hynes, through a spokesman, said he would not publicize information about specific accusations because he did not want to discourage victims from coming forward. But at least one ultra-Orthodox rabbi acknowledged asking him not to publicize these cases and said other rabbis had as well. 

The number of sexual abuse cases involving children being prosecuted by Mr. Hynes’s office is up sharply. But an examination by The New York Times shows that some of Mr. Hynes’s claims about the Kol Tzedek program appear to be inflated. 

Through an extensive search of court and other public records, The Times determined the names of suspects and other details in 47 of the 95 cases attributed to the Kol Tzedek program. More than half of the 47 seemed to have little to do with the program, according to the court records and interviews. 

Some did not involve ultra-Orthodox victims, which the program is specifically intended to help. More than one-third involved arrests before the program began, as early as 2007. Many came in through standard reporting channels, like calls to the police. 

While the 47 cases did include charges against camp counselors, yeshiva teachers and rabbis, they also included cases like that of a Borough Park cafe owner who was convicted of molesting a female Hispanic immigrant who worked for him. 

At least three others were of ultra-Orthodox defendants who groped women on public transportation, including one Borough Park resident accused of placing his penis on a woman’s shoulder. The woman immediately called the transit police. 

Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, center, in his 1994 bid for attorney general, next to his wife, Patricia.

Mr. Hynes would not be interviewed for this article. He has never publicly opposed the ultra-Orthodox Jewish position that a rabbi must first determine that an accusation of child sexual abuse is valid before the authorities are notified.  

His aides acknowledged that Rabbi Zwiebel informed him about Agudath’s position last summer. 

“D.A. Hynes did meet with Zwiebel and told him he wouldn’t interfere with someone’s decision to consult with his or her rabbi about allegations of sexual abuse, but would expect that these allegations of criminal conduct be reported to the appropriate law enforcement authorities,” said Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for Mr. Hynes. 

Prosecutors in the district attorney’s office emphasized that the Kol Tzedek program, which has a hot line, a part-time social worker and links to social service agencies, demonstrated that Mr. Hynes cared deeply about the issue. 

“This is an incredible success,” said Rhonnie Jaus, chief of his sex crimes division. “I know how many cases we used to have before that. When I say a handful, I mean a handful every single year. It’s ridiculous the difference we have that I see with my own eyes between before the start of Kol Tzedek and now.” 

Asked whether the office was exaggerating the program’s impact, she said all of the victims involved took advantage of the program’s services. “Our numbers are not inflated,” she said. “If anything, they are conservative.” 

Still, some who have urged more aggressive prosecution said Mr. Hynes was too beholden to ultra-Orthodox rabbis for political support. 

Rabbi Yosef Blau of Yeshiva University was one of the few victims’ advocates who attended the Hanukkah party in December. 

“Basically, I looked around the room and the message that I got is: You are in bed with all the fixers in Brooklyn,” Rabbi Blau said. “Nothing is going to change, because these people, the message they got is: These are the ones that count.” 

Potential Conflicts of Interest

David Zimmer

David Zimmer was 25 when he groped a 9-year-old girl in a garage in Borough Park, court records said. 

“She liked it,” he later told the police. 

He then took two sisters there, ages 9 and 10. In August 1998, he was accused of raping the 10-year-old, according to court documents. 

The police arrested Mr. Zimmer that year, but the case’s impact on the credibility of Mr. Hynes’s office resonates today. 

Back then, prosecutors seemed in a strong position, with a handwritten confession from Mr. Zimmer. Initially charged with more than 24 counts of sex offenses, he pleaded guilty to one count of sexual abuse in the first degree and received five years’ probation. 

Mr. Zimmer’s lawyer was Asher White, who is married to Henna White, Mr. Hynes’s longtime liaison to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. Ms. White, an adherent of the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement, makes $138,000 a year, more than most of Mr. Hynes’s prosecutors. 

Ms. White organizes gatherings like the Hanukkah celebration, while overseeing the Kol Tzedek program. As a result, she has dual roles: she is supposed to encourage ultra-Orthodox victims to come forward despite opposition from some rabbis, even as she tries to maintain relationships with rabbis generally. 

Ms. White and her husband declined to respond to questions about Mr. Zimmer’s case, or to disclose whether they had discussed it with each other. Prosecutors said Ms. White had no involvement, but entanglements like these have long raised questions about how Mr. Hynes handles prosecutions in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. 

Hopes that probation and treatment would lead to the rehabilitation of Mr. Zimmer were shaken when new accusations surfaced: A prosecutor this month told a judge that while working as a locksmith in recent years, Mr. Zimmer went into homes and repeatedly molested children who lived there. The police discovered that he had kept a diary detailing the many times that he had abused children, the prosecutor said. 

He pleaded not guilty to charges of sexually abusing four girls, ages 6 to 10. He is being held on $1 million bond. Ms. Jaus said the original plea agreement was the best that the office could do because the victims’ parents did not want them to testify.  

“I have never received any pressure to do anything in a particular case,” she said. 

But the father of the first 9-year-old, who said he never knew about Mr. White’s involvement, said he would have allowed his daughter to take the stand. 

“The district attorney’s office called me and said this guy’s not 100 percent normal, so they were going to give him probation,” said the father, who asked not to be identified to protect his daughter’s identity. “If they don’t want to prosecute, what are you going to do?” 

Mr. Hynes often describes how, growing up in the only non-Jewish family in his building in Flatbush, he spent the Jewish Sabbath turning on lights for his Orthodox neighbors, who could not perform such tasks under Jewish law. 

When he was the only non-Jew in a four-way Democratic primary in his failed 1994 bid for attorney general of New York State, he placed advertisements in Jewish publications signed by more than 150 Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders. 

“I’m really the Jew in this race,” he joked to a reporter for The Jewish Week. Referring to his opponents, he said, “I probably know more Yiddish than they do combined.” 

Mr. Hynes’s attention to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has translated into votes. In 2005, when Mr. Hynes eked out a 42 percent to 37 percent victory in the Democratic primary for district attorney, he won in a landslide in several ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. In one election district in Williamsburg that is filled with Hasidic synagogues, Mr. Hynes pulled in 84 percent of the vote, according to election records. 

The relationship has not always been smooth. He angered many of his closest ultra-Orthodox Jewish supporters in 1999 when he charged Bernard Freilich, a popular rabbi, with intimidating a witness in a sexual abuse case. Rabbi Freilich was acquitted the next year. 

“I never knew of cases in which Joe Hynes bowed to community pressure,” said Aaron Twerski, former dean of the Hofstra University School of Law, who had served with Rabbi Freilich as community advisers to Mr. Hynes. “He would listen, and if there were merit, he might rethink something, but Joe’s his own man.” 

Brooklyn’s highly cloistered ultra-Orthodox Jewish community — by some estimates, more than 200,000 people, the largest outside of Israel — would present challenges for any prosecutor. Informing on a fellow Jew to a secular authority is traditionally seen as a grave sin, and victims who do come forward can face intense communal intimidation to drop their cases. 

In part for this reason, of the roughly 1,200 cases Mr. Hynes’s sex crimes unit handles each year, few until recently involved ultra-Orthodox Jews, though experts said the rate of sexual abuse in these communities was believed to occur at the same rate as in society over all. 

But even when Mr. Hynes’s office did bring cases, they often ended in plea bargains that victims and their families believed were lenient. The Jewish Week, in a 2008 editorial, described Mr. Hynes’s attitude toward these cases as “ranging from passive to weak-willed.” 

Rabbi Zwiebel of Agudath Israel defended Mr. Hynes’s record. “The D.A. has made a conscious effort to be sensitive to the cultural nuances of the different communities that he works with,” said Rabbi Zwiebel, though even he believes the names of those convicted should be publicized for the safety of the community. 

Outreach Program Formed

Mr. Hynes seemed to turn a page in 2009 when he announced the creation of Kol Tzedek.

The announcement came in the wake of criticism after a 2008 plea deal he made with Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, a grade school teacher at a Flatbush yeshiva who had been the subject of sexual abuse complaints to rabbinical authorities for more than 30 years. 

In the plea deal, which at least one victim’s father opposed, Mr. Hynes reduced two felony counts of sexual abuse to a single misdemeanor charge of endangering the welfare of a child. The rabbi received three years’ probation and was not required to register as a sex offender.  

“That case really got the advocacy movement rolling,” said Mark Appel, founder of Voice of Justice, an advocacy group unrelated to the district attorney’s program of the same name. “People were so angry.” 

Mr. Hynes’s aides said they had made more than 40 presentations to community members promoting Kol Tzedek. And of the few cases that yielded convictions that The Times was able to identify, the outcomes were roughly similar to cases involving offenders who were not ultra-Orthodox. Still, the new effort has not quieted the criticism. 

Marci A. Hamilton, a professor of constitutional law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, blamed Mr. Hynes for not speaking out against the ultra-Orthodox position that mandates that allegations must be first reported to rabbis. The position potentially flouts a state law that requires teachers, social workers and others to report allegations of sexual abuse immediately to the authorities. 

She said Mr. Hynes was essentially allowing rabbis to act as gatekeepers. 

“That’s exactly what the Catholic Church did, what the Latter-day Saints did, what the Jehovah’s Witnesses did,” said Ms. Hamilton, author of “Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children.”

 

Victims’ rights groups say Mr. Hynes has also failed to take a strong stand against rabbis and institutions that have covered up abuse, and has not brought charges recently against community members who have sometimes pressed victims’ families not to testify. 

Ms. White, his liaison to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, said the district attorney had few options, in part because some victims declined to implicate those who threatened them, fearful that if they did, they would face even more pressure. 

“I always feel so bad for those parents, because you watch the shock on their face when they find out that their child has been abused, and then they get all of the pressure,” Ms. White said. 

Mr. Hynes’s refusal to publicize the names of people arrested through Kol Tzedek has deepened suspicions among victims’ rights groups, while winning praise from some rabbis.

“I think that’s where the rabbis put a little pressure on him,” said Rabbi Shea Hecht, an informal adviser to Mr. Hynes. “I know I went to speak to him about that. I said ‘Listen, you got to do the arrest, you go to do the investigation, but please don’t give out the names before we know if the man is guilty.’ ” 

In response to a Freedom of Information request by The Times, Mr. Hynes’s office acknowledged that in the “vast majority of cases, the disclosure of a defendant’s name would not tend to reveal the identity of the sex-crime victim.” 

But, the office said, because the ultra-Orthodox community is “very tight-knit and insular,” there is “significant danger” that disclosure would cause victims to withdraw cooperation, making prosecutions “extremely difficult, if not impossible.” 

Several former prosecutors interviewed for this article said the policy seemed to make little sense. 

“The idea is that the more information you give out, the more likely it is that victims might come forward with complaints,” said Bennett L. Gershman, a former Manhattan prosecutor who specializes in prosecutorial conduct at Pace University Law School. “So the idea that a prosecutor would conceal this kind of information strikes me as illogical, and almost perverse.” 

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 15, 2012

An article on Thursday about the intimidation some ultra-Orthodox Jews encounter in their community when they come forward with allegations of child sexual abuse misspelled the surname of a rabbi who is executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, a powerful ultra-Orthodox organization. He is Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, not Zweibel. (The error was repeated in an article on Friday about the Brooklyn district attorney, who must decide how to handle such cases.)

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For Ultra-Orthodox, Clash Over Allegations 
By Sharon Otterman

New York Times -  May 16, 2012 

Ultra-Orthodox men look on as Sara Erenthal, 30, holds a sign in support of the young woman who accused Nechemya Weberman of sexual abuse.

As thousands of supporters of a Brooklyn man accused of being a child molester attended a fund-raiser for his legal defense Wednesday night, a group of about 100 people supporting the young woman who alleged that he sexually assaulted her rallied outside.

It was a scene of anger and division over the issue of child sexual abuse that residents of the insular neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, said they had never before seen. In front of the Continental catering hall on Rutledge Street, where the fund-raiser was being held, a tightly packed crowd of Hasidic men who supported the accused man, Nechemya Weberman, stood and stared down the young woman’s supporters, who stood behind police barricades. “Protect victims, not abusers,” their signs said. 

“I’m here to support the young girl, the victim, who has been vilified and dragged through the mud,” said Robert H. Hoatson, a former Catholic priest who stood with ultra-Orthodox supporters of the girl, other victims of child sexual abuse and their advocates. 

At about 8 p.m., a Hasidic man from the fund-raiser rushed the protesters’ barricades. The police grabbed him, put him in handcuffs and led him away. 

Two women who supported Mr. Weberman said that he was a good man, and that they did not believe he was capable of sexual abuse. They called the girl a liar and got into a dispute with Pearl Engelman, a victims’ advocate who was at the protest. 

“How do you know he is innocent?” Mrs. Engelman asked. “Because you know him? That is proof?” 

Members of the ultra-Orthodox community who report abuse cases to the police — rather than allowing rabbinical authorities to handle the matters — regularly face harassment, and it is not unusual for ultra-Orthodox synagogues in the New York area to take up collections for the defense of those accused. 

The fund-raiser was held to support Mr. Weberman, 53, an unlicensed therapist who has been indicted on charges that he sexually assaulted a girl, starting when she was 12, during sessions intended to promote her religious practice. His trial is set to begin as early as June.

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Ultra-Orthodox Men Charged With Trying to Silence Accuser
By Sharon Otterman
New York Times  - June 21, 2012

The Brooklyn district attorney, facing a wave of public criticism about his handling of sexual abuse allegations in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, on Thursday charged four men with attempting to silence an accuser by offering her and her boyfriend a $500,000 bribe, and threatening her boyfriend’s business.  

The district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, alleged that the men were part of an effort to protect a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community, Nechemya Weberman, who has been accused of 88 counts of sexual misconduct, including oral sex with a child younger than 13 years old. The charges all involve one girl, now 17, who was referred by her school to get counseling by Mr. Weberman, and then alleged she was abused by him during therapy sessions. 

The charges are the first time in at least two decades that Mr. Hynes has charged Hasidic Jews with intimidation of a witness in a sexual abuse case, even though victims, their advocates and prosecutors say intimidation has long been a major obstacle to prosecution of abuse among the ultra-Orthodox. In recent weeks, Mr. Hynes has been saying that the intimidation of witnesses in the ultra-Orthodox community is worse than in the world of organized crime. 

“I’m hoping that this will be a message to those who are intimidated that they should come forward and help us,” Mr. Hynes said at a news conference. “No one can engage in this kind of conduct and feel free that, based on prior experience, nothing can happen to them.” 

Prosecutors charged Abraham Rubin, 48, of Williamsburg with bribery, witness tampering and coercion. They said that he had been recorded offering the accuser’s boyfriend the money, and he suggested that the young couple could flee to Israel to avoid testifying. He also offered to provide them with a lawyer who could help them avoid cooperating with prosecutors. 

Joseph Berger arrested

Prosecutors also charged three brothers, Jacob, Joseph and Hertzka Berger, with coercion, saying they threatened and then removed the kosher certification of a restaurant run by the accuser’s boyfriend. The brothers are sons of a local rabbi who issues kosher certifications to stores. 

The four men pleaded not guilty on Thursday in a Brooklyn courtroom packed with benches full of their supporters, dressed in the dark clothing worn by Hasidic men. 

Hertzka Berger’s lawyer, Bruce Wenger, said after the arraignment that the four men “all deny the allegations.” 

“They are all obviously going to be fighting these cases vehemently,” he said. “They are looking forward to their day in court.” 

Jacob Berger arrested

But a prosecutor, Josh Hanshaft, said the men had been “telling witnesses to forget what they know, not to come to court, to disappear,” and said prosecutors had “clear, substantial evidence” that part of the plan to silence witnesses involved offering money to dissuade their testimony. 

If convicted, Mr. Rubin faces up to seven years in prison. Joseph and Hertzka Berger each face a year in jail, and Jacob Berger faces up to four years. 

Mr. Weberman has denied the abuse allegations, and his lawyer, George Farkas, said Mr. Weberman knew nothing of the alleged intimidation. 

“Mr. Weberman, and his attorneys, are appalled by these allegations, which if true, are reprehensible,” Mr. Farkas said. The intimidation charges, a moment of triumph for Mr. Hynes, come as his office has been criticized by victims, victims’ advocates, former Mayor Ed Koch and others for an insufficiently aggressive response to the sexual abuse of minors within the ultra-Orthodox community. 

Hertzka Berger

And this week, Mr. Hynes’s office is suffering an embarrassing reversal in another abuse case involving an Orthodox Jewish accuser. After revelations that Mr. Hynes’s office had failed to share exculpatory evidence with defense attorneys, lawyers said Monday that all charges against four men accused of raping and forcibly prostituting a Chabad Lubavitch woman from Crown Heights for nearly a decade would be dropped. 

In the Williamsburg case, the accuser was in sixth grade when she was referred to Mr. Weberman, an unlicensed therapist, by her Williamsburg religious school, a close family member said in an interview last month. Her parents were told she would be expelled from school unless they paid $150 an hour for him to provide her with therapy. 

Instead, Mr. Weberman, who is now 53, repeatedly sexually molested her over three years, when she was 12 to 15, and told her that she would be expelled from school if she told anyone, the relative said. The girl then changed schools and told a licensed therapist what had happened. The therapist reported the girl’s allegations to the police. 

After Mr. Weberman’s arrest in 2011, a campaign of intimidation is alleged to have begun against the accuser, her boyfriend and her family members. Prominent Hasidic Jews publicly proclaimed their support for Mr. Weberman, and, on May 16, hosted hundreds of Hasidic men at a local wedding hall to raise money for Mr. Weberman’s legal defense. To promote the fund-raiser, his supporters hung posters on lampposts and brick walls around the neighborhood, accusing the young woman, in Yiddish, of libel. 

Hershy Deutsch, survivors boyfriend

The girl’s boyfriend, 24-year-old Hershy Deutsch, organized a demonstration outside the fund-raiser. In an interview at the time, he said that he had faced intimidation because of his girlfriend’s allegations, and that he had decided to speak out. He said that a restaurant he manages in Williamsburg, the Old Williamsburg Cafe on Lee Avenue, was targeted by a flood of false complaints to city authorities in late April. And, he said, men from the neighborhood had offered him $500,000 if he could persuade the girl to drop her case. 

“For those of you questioning the credibility of the victim’s story,” Mr. Deutsch wrote in a letter he posted on his Facebook page, “ask yourself the following question: Would a nonguilty person offer someone a half a million dollars if they drop the charges?” 

“Speak up!” he wrote. “Face the facts, our community has been covering up these stories for way too long. We have to put an end to this!” 

On Thursday afternoon a metal gate was rolled down over the entrance to the Old Williamsburg Cafe, and a sign taped to the door said that the store “will be closed until further notice.” 

Victims’ advocates said Thursday that they were glad that Mr. Hynes had brought an intimidation case, and hoped it would begin to ease the problem. While some ultra-Orthodox rabbis now say that a child molester should be reported to the police, others strictly adhere to an ancient Jewish prohibition against mesirah, the turning in of a Jew to non-Jewish authorities, and instruct victims to either remain silent or let rabbinical authorities quietly handle the allegations. 

“This is a big threshold,” said Mark Appel, the founder of Voice of Justice, a nonprofit agency that helps ultra-Orthodox victims. And Joel Engelman, the founder of the Jewish Survivors Network, also praised Mr. Hynes for bringing the intimidation case, because, he said, “in the Williamsburg Hasidic community, intimidation is rampant.”

Colin Moynihan contributed reporting.

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Ultra-Orthodox Jews Accused of Intimidating Victim in Sex Abuse Case 
By Margaret Hartmann
The New Yorker - June 22, 2012

As part of Kings County District Attorney Charles Hynes's effort to prove that he's tough on child molestation, despite complaints that he shielded ultra-Orthodox Jewish abusers, on Thursday he charged four men from the community with attempting to silence an accuser. The intimidation of victims is reportedly a large problem among ultra-Orthodox Jews, yet this is the first time in at least two decades that Hynes has charged Hasidic Jews with attempting to silence a witness in an abuse case.

Last year, 53-year-old Nechemya Weberman was charged with 88 counts of sexual misconduct, all relating to one girl who says he molested her during therapy sessions from age 12 to 15. Hynes says the four men tried to give the accuser, who is now 17, a $500,000 bribe and attacked her boyfriend's business. Per the New York Times:

Prosecutors charged Abraham Rubin, 48, of Williamsburg with bribery, witness tampering and coercion. They said that he had been recorded offering the accuser’s boyfriend the money, and he suggested that the young couple could flee to Israel to avoid testifying. He also offered to provide them with a lawyer who could help them avoid cooperating with prosecutors.

Prosecutors also charged three brothers, Jacob, Joseph and Hertzka Berger, with coercion, saying they threatened and then removed the kosher certification of a restaurant run by the accuser’s boyfriend. The brothers are sons of a local rabbi who issues kosher certifications to stores.

Hynes said he hopes the move "will be a message to those who are intimidated that they should come forward and help us,” but his office's track record on sex crimes leaves much to be desired.  Earlier this month it was reported that in 1994, Hynes urged police to drop a case against an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who kidnapped a 13-year-old boy. Then this week, lawyers said the case against four men accused of raping and prostituting an Orthodox Jewish woman would be dropped because Hynes kept from the defense a police report in which the woman changed her story. For victims who have yet to come forward, that case probably seems pretty intimidating in and of itself.

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4 Men Charged With Intimidating Witnesses In Connection With Rabbi’s Sex Abuse Case

Attorney For Nechemya Weberman: He Had Nothing To Do With Alleged Plot

CBS NEWS New York - June 21, 2012

NEW YORK (CBS NewYork) – Four men have been charged with intimidating witnesses in an Ultra-Orthodox sex abuse case involving a spiritual adviser accused of molesting a teenage girl for years, according to prosecutors.

The men apparently tried to bribe the boyfriend of the young accuser with $500,000 in an attempt to get the alleged victim to drop the charges against Rabbi Nechemya Weberman or move to Israel, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said Thursday.


The boyfriend refused to accept the money and instead went to authorities, 1010 WINS’ Juliet Papa reported.

The men also allegedly threatened to shut down the boyfriend’s Kosher restaurant, WCBS 880′s Irene Cornell reported.


The men pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges including witness intimidation and coercion. The district attorney said it’s the first prosecution in 20 years in which defendants are charged with intimidating witnesses in a sex abuse case.

Bail has been set at $75,000 for Abraham Rubin and $5,000 for brothers Jacob, Joseph and Hertzka Berger.

“They all deny the allegations. They are obviously going to be fighting these charges vehemently,” Bruce Wenger, Hertzka Berger’s attorney, told CBS 2′s John Slattery.

Weberman, 53, is accused of raping and abusing the girl for nearly three years starting when she was 12 years old. The girl is now 17.

Weberman has pleaded not guilty to committing a criminal sex act, rape, endangering the welfare of a child and sexual abuse.

“This was an attempt to buy the silence of Weberman‘s victim as well as another witness who knew what she had gone through,” District Attorney Hynes said.

Last month in Williamsburg, supporters of Weberman ralled to raise funds for his legal defense. With charges now against four supporters, attorney Michael Farkas told CBS 2′s Slattery, “Mr Weberman had no prior knowledge of or involvement with these deplorable acts, which, if proven to be true, are reprehensible.”

The indictments come at a time when Hynes has been under fire for refusing to name charged abusers to protect victims and their families from being ostracized by the community.

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Brooklyn men arraigned in witness-tampering case

Lisa Evers

Fox News - June 21, 2012 

MYFOXNY.COM - Four men from an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn are accused of trying to prevent a sex crime victim and a key witness from taking the stand. 
Law enforcement sources said one of the alleged incidents happened at a kosher restaurant that is now shut down.

Abraham Rubin, 48, was taken into the courtroom in handcuffs. He was arraigned on felony bribery and witness tampering charges. Prosecutors say he offered a child sex abuse victim and her boyfriend half a million dollars to make the case go away. 

The case was brought against a prominent figure, counselor Nechemya Weberman. 

The district attorney says the victim was taken to him for counseling when she was just 12 years old but instead she was subjected to 3 years of sexual abuse.

Dozens of members of the Satmar religious community, some hiding their faces, turned out to support Rubin and three brothers also facing charges.

Hertzka, Jacob and Joseph Berger allegedly tried to convince the victim and her witness boyfriend not to cooperate.

The D.A. says they tore down the kosher certification from the boyfriend's Williamsburg restaurant.
All four suspects pleaded not guilty.

The sexual abuse case against Weberman has rocked this insular community. It also prompted criticism that sexual abuse crimes, especially against children, were not aggressively prosecuted.
But now the NYPD is part of a special task force.

All four suspects made bail.

Rubin is looking at up to 7 years behind bars if convicted.

The sex abuse case against the prominent counselor is moving forward, and the trial is expected to start in July.

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4 ultra-Orthodox men charged with trying to extort witness in rabbi sex-abuse case

Bribe, extort in perv-rabbi case: DA

By JOSE MARTINEZ

New York Post - June 21, 2012

The law didn’t apply to them — or so they thought.

Four ultra-Orthodox Jewish men were busted yesterday for trying to make a sensational sex-abuse case against a prominent Brooklyn rabbi vanish by intimidating potential witnesses in his upcoming trial.

“No one can engage in this kind of conduct and feel free that, based on prior experience, nothing is going to happen,” said Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, who’s come under heavy criticism for his handling of cases involving alleged perverts from the ultra-Orthodox community.

“Intimidation of victims and witnesses in sex-abuse cases in the Orthodox community is what has made prosecuting these cases so difficult,” Hynes said.

Post photos: Spencer Burnett

ULTRA-‘STRONG-ARM’: Four members of Williamsburg’s ultra-Orthodox community (from left) Abraham Rubin and brothers Joseph, Hertzka and Jacob Berger in court yesterday after being charged with trying to silence an alleged sex-abuse victim.

 

Abraham Rubin, 48, was charged with offering a $500,000 bribe to a young woman and her boyfriend so they could “basically disappear” and leave the country, after they had accused Rabbi Nechemya Weberman of molesting her during spiritual- counseling sessions when she was 12.

“He has no regard for the system,” Assistant District Attorney Josh Hanshaft said of Rubin. “He thumbed his nose at the system.”

Brothers Joseph, Jacob and Hertzka Berger also were charged with trying to silence the pair by threatening to strip away a rabbi’s kosher certification from the boyfriend’s restaurant.

When the boyfriend refused, prosecutors said, Jacob Berger ripped down the seal anyway.
“They have gone and destroyed property, they made threatening phone calls,” Hanshaft said. “They do what they have to do for the case to go away.”

The splashy arrests in Williamsburg’s ultra-Orthodox community were announced as Hynes continues taking heat for refusing to identify alleged sexual offenders in the close-knit community, for fear that accusers will be outed and ostracized.

“If you’re dealing with organized crime, which is another group of intimidators, at least I can offer a witness who’s threatened or intimidated an opportunity to go into witness protection,” Hynes said.

“That’s not an option for people who live and are part of this culture.”

The four men were led in handcuffs into a courtroom packed with ultra-Orthodox supporters from a community that also has held large rallies to raise funds for Weberman’s legal defense.

“The community stands behind them 100 percent,” said Michael Elbaz, a defense lawyer for Joseph Berger.

Hynes said investigators could find no evidence of a connection between the four men and Weberman, whose own lawyer said he was in the dark on their alleged efforts to silence witnesses.

“Mr. Weberman had no prior knowledge of or any involvement with these deplorable acts, which, if proven to be true, are reprehensible,” said George Farkas, a lawyer for the 53-year-old accused child molester. 

“Mr. Weberman has stated from the beginning that no one should be subjected to any kind of harassment,” Farkas said.

The start of Weberman’s sex-abuse trial was delayed last week after his lawyers said a yeshiva he was affiliated with repeatedly ignored requests for information.

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Three men accused of trying to buy victim’s silence in rabbi sex abuse case
By Aaron Short
The Brookyn Paper - June 22, 2012 

Prosecutors accused four Orthodox Jewish men of trying to use threats and bribes to convince a victim and a witness to drop a sexual assault case against an influential Williamsburg rabbi.

Abraham Rubin (Witness Tampering)

Brooklyn residents Abraham Rubin, 48, and brothers Joseph, Jacob, and Hertzka Berger were indicted in criminal court last Thursday for allegedly pressuring the victim and her boyfriend to not cooperate with law enforcement over the explosive sexual molestation case they filed against ultra-Orthodox rabbi Nechemya Weberman last year.

Rubin bore the brunt of the charges for allegedly trying to buy the victim’s silence with a $500,000 bribe and advising them to flee the country. He even offered to provide the witness with an attorney who could help them learn techniques so they could be uncooperative at the trial, according to authorities.

Prosecutors slapped Rubin with four counts of bribing a witness, two counts of tampering with a witness, and one count of coercion. If convicted, he could face up to seven years in prison.

The Berger brothers received a separate indictment for pressuring the victim and the witness to stop helping law enforcement and threatening to close the witness’s kosher restaurant, according to investigators.

Jacob Berger allegedly went to the witness’s diner and ripped off its rabbi-issued kosher certification. The witness has since closed his Williamsburg cafe.

Joseph Berger received a charge of aggravated harassment. He faces four years in prison if convicted. His siblings face charges of coercion and one year in prison if convicted.

Civic and religious leaders have chastised Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes for concealing the identity of sex abusers in Brooklyn’s strictly conservative Hasidic communities — but Hynes said the indictments prove his office “will not tolerate individuals who try to interfere with the pursuit of justice.”

“Intimidation of victims and witnesses in sex abuse cases in the Orthodox community is what has made prosecuting these cases so difficult,” said Hynes. “Victims were afraid to come forward because they would be threatened and shunned in their communities. My office spares no effort to conceal and protect the identities of sex crimes victims, regardless of their cultural or religious background.”

A trial for Weberman, a Hasidic therapist who allegedly molested a 12-year-old girl from 2007 to 2010 during counseling sessions in his home-office, was set to begin this month but has been delayed. 

Weberman and his attorney vehemently deny the molestation charges.

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Ultra-Orthodox Men Charged With Trying to Silence Accuser
By Sharon Otterman
New York Times - June 21, 2012

The Brooklyn district attorney, facing a wave of public criticism about his handling of sexual abuse allegations in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, on Thursday charged four men with attempting to silence an accuser by offering her and her boyfriend a $500,000 bribe, and threatening her boyfriend’s business.

The district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, alleged that the men were part of an effort to protect a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community, Nechemya Weberman, who has been accused of 88 counts of sexual misconduct, including oral sex with a child younger than 13 years old. The charges all involve one girl, now 17, who was referred by her school to get counseling by Mr. Weberman, and then alleged she was abused by him during therapy sessions. 

The charges are the first time in at least two decades that Mr. Hynes has charged Hasidic Jews with intimidation of a witness in a sexual abuse case, even though victims, their advocates and prosecutors say intimidation has long been a major obstacle to prosecution of abuse among the ultra-Orthodox. In recent weeks, Mr. Hynes has been saying that the intimidation of witnesses in the ultra-Orthodox community is worse than in the world of organized crime. 

“I’m hoping that this will be a message to those who are intimidated that they should come forward and help us,” Mr. Hynes said at a news conference. “No one can engage in this kind of conduct and feel free that, based on prior experience, nothing can happen to them.” 

Prosecutors charged Abraham Rubin, 48, of Williamsburg with bribery, witness tampering and coercion. They said that he had been recorded offering the accuser’s boyfriend the money, and he suggested that the young couple could flee to Israel to avoid testifying. He also offered to provide them with a lawyer who could help them avoid cooperating with prosecutors. 

Prosecutors also charged three brothers, Jacob, Joseph and Hertzka Berger, with coercion, saying they threatened and then removed the kosher certification of a restaurant run by the accuser’s boyfriend. The brothers are sons of a local rabbi who issues kosher certifications to stores. 

The four men pleaded not guilty on Thursday in a Brooklyn courtroom packed with benches full of their supporters, dressed in the dark clothing worn by Hasidic men. 

Hertzka Berger’s lawyer, Bruce Wenger, said after the arraignment that the four men “all deny the allegations.” 

“They are all obviously going to be fighting these cases vehemently,” he said. “They are looking forward to their day in court.” 

But a prosecutor, Josh Hanshaft, said the men had been “telling witnesses to forget what they know, not to come to court, to disappear,” and said prosecutors had “clear, substantial evidence” that part of the plan to silence witnesses involved offering money to dissuade their testimony. 

If convicted, Mr. Rubin faces up to seven years in prison. Joseph and Hertzka Berger each face a year in jail, and Jacob Berger faces up to four years. 

Mr. Weberman has denied the abuse allegations, and his lawyer, George Farkas, said Mr. Weberman knew nothing of the alleged intimidation. 

“Mr. Weberman, and his attorneys, are appalled by these allegations, which if true, are reprehensible,” Mr. Farkas said. The intimidation charges, a moment of triumph for Mr. Hynes, come as his office has been criticized by victims, victims’ advocates, former Mayor Ed Koch and others for an insufficiently aggressive response to the sexual abuse of minors within the ultra-Orthodox community. 

And this week, Mr. Hynes’s office is suffering an embarrassing reversal in another abuse case involving an Orthodox Jewish accuser. After revelations that Mr. Hynes’s office had failed to share exculpatory evidence with defense attorneys, lawyers said Monday that all charges against four men accused of raping and forcibly prostituting a Chabad Lubavitch woman from Crown Heights for nearly a decade would be dropped. 

In the Williamsburg case, the accuser was in sixth grade when she was referred to Mr. Weberman, an unlicensed therapist, by her Williamsburg religious school, a close family member said in an interview last month. Her parents were told she would be expelled from school unless they paid $150 an hour for him to provide her with therapy. 

Instead, Mr. Weberman, who is now 53, repeatedly sexually molested her over three years, when she was 12 to 15, and told her that she would be expelled from school if she told anyone, the relative said. The girl then changed schools and told a licensed therapist what had happened. The therapist reported the girl’s allegations to the police.  

After Mr. Weberman’s arrest in 2011, a campaign of intimidation is alleged to have begun against the accuser, her boyfriend and her family members. Prominent Hasidic Jews publicly proclaimed their support for Mr. Weberman, and, on May 16, hosted hundreds of Hasidic men at a local wedding hall to raise money for Mr. Weberman’s legal defense. To promote the fund-raiser, his supporters hung posters on lampposts and brick walls around the neighborhood, accusing the young woman, in Yiddish, of libel. 

The girl’s boyfriend, 24-year-old Hershy Deutsch, organized a demonstration outside the fund-raiser. In an interview at the time, he said that he had faced intimidation because of his girlfriend’s allegations, and that he had decided to speak out. He said that a restaurant he manages in Williamsburg, the Old Williamsburg Cafe on Lee Avenue, was targeted by a flood of false complaints to city authorities in late April. And, he said, men from the neighborhood had offered him $500,000 if he could persuade the girl to drop her case. 

“For those of you questioning the credibility of the victim’s story,” Mr. Deutsch wrote in a letter he posted on his Facebook page, “ask yourself the following question: Would a nonguilty person offer someone a half a million dollars if they drop the charges?” 

“Speak up!” he wrote. “Face the facts, our community has been covering up these stories for way too long. We have to put an end to this!” 

On Thursday afternoon a metal gate was rolled down over the entrance to the Old Williamsburg Cafe, and a sign taped to the door said that the store “will be closed until further notice.” 

Victims’ advocates said Thursday that they were glad that Mr. Hynes had brought an intimidation case, and hoped it would begin to ease the problem. While some ultra-Orthodox rabbis now say that a child molester should be reported to the police, others strictly adhere to an ancient Jewish prohibition against mesirah, the turning in of a Jew to non-Jewish authorities, and instruct victims to either remain silent or let rabbinical authorities quietly handle the allegations. 

“This is a big threshold,” said Mark Appel, the founder of Voice of Justice, a nonprofit agency that helps ultra-Orthodox victims. And Joel Engelman, the founder of the Jewish Survivors Network, also praised Mr. Hynes for bringing the intimidation case, because, he said, “in the Williamsburg Hasidic community, intimidation is rampant.”

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Most Brooklyn Abuse Cases Involve Kin: Relative or Friends Responsible in More Than Half of Cases
By Paul Berger
Forward - July 16, 2012

Recent media accounts of child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s Orthodox community have highlighted the threat victims face from teachers, rabbis and yeshiva staff as perpetrators, and the special pressures — even intimidation — they face from community leaders not to report such cases to secular law enforcement.

But a list of child sexual abuse cases in that community suggests that another source of pressure, even closer to home, may be at least as important.

The list, released by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes earlier this year, describes 97 abuse cases that Hynes says he prosecuted over the last three years. According to the data, 20% of these cases involved family members — usually fathers, brothers or uncles — and another 37% involved a perpetrator who was a friend or acquaintance.

By contrast, only about 12% of the cases appeared to involve rabbis, bar mitzvah tutors, counselors or yeshiva employees, including janitors and security guards. The next largest group of perpetrators consisted of strangers, who accounted for about 17% of Hynes’s Orthodox-related prosecutions.

The information from Hynes’s list must be treated with caution for a number of reasons. Some cases — Hynes’s office won’t say which — include adult victims while others involved non-Jewish perpetrators or victims. But according to Rhonnie Jaus, the head of Hynes’s sex crimes division, the “vast majority” of cases described are those of Orthodox children.

Hynes has also refused to release the names of the perpetrators, making an assessment of the professional positions of those described as family members impossible. Also, rabbis and other authority figures may make up a larger proportion of offenders than the list indicates, but not be present on it simply because people are too scared to report them.

Nevertheless, according to specialists in the field of child abuse, the data are consistent with what is known about such abuse more broadly. Cases involving ultra-Orthodox authority figures dominate headlines, as do those involving clergy members, football coaches and schoolteachers, because they often tend to have large numbers of victims. In terms of victims per perpetrator, such figures constitute concentrated sources of threat to children. But Hynes’s chart indicates that the general threat from family members cannot be ignored.

“You tend to expect that the majority of offenders are not people in a high-profile position,” said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. “They are brothers and uncles, fathers and neighbors.”

Just as secular victims often struggle to bring charges against people close to them, ultra-Orthodox families also grapple with the implications of accusing friends and relatives, these experts say.

“The family doesn’t want the breadwinner to be jailed and the income cut off,” Finkelhor said of secular victims’ families. “They don’t want the rest of the family turning against them because the kid’s fingered the grandparent.”

While the incidence of child sexual abuse within the circle of family and close acquaintances may be no greater than in secular society, ultra-Orthodox families do face special issues when wrestling with the challenge of reporting such people to the police.

Judy Braun, an author who was raised in the ultra-Orthodox community, said the distinction between family and non-family cases may be only partially useful when examining the ultra-Orthodox community. Braun, whose recent novel, “Hush,” is based on her experience of witnessing a friend being abused by a family member, said that because the community is like an extended family, there is often little perceived difference between family members and non-family members. “The [perpetrator] is a third cousin, or a friend of the family, or a son-in-law of a [family member],” Braun said. “It’s like a spider web.”

Further, even without direct and explicit interference from rabbinic authorities or the pressure of ruining a relative’s life, Braun said, parents are under intense pressure not to risk their children being tarnished as impure. “The attitude is a bit like Muslims,” Braun said. “It’s a stain on the [victims] themselves.”

Mesirah — a religious prohibition against informing on a fellow Jew to the secular authorities — is often blamed for dissuading victims from reporting abusers to the police. But there is anecdotal evidence that even in cases where the perpetrator is a non-Jew, ultra-Orthodox families struggle to go to police.

According to Jaus, in one recent case two ultra-Orthodox girls were separately abducted and sexually assaulted. A DNA sample linked a non-Jewish man to the crimes. But both families refused to cooperate, in part, said Jaus, because they feared that an investigation could tarnish the girls’ marriage chances as well as their siblings’ ability to get into school and get married. (Law enforcement sources confirmed that an indictment has finally been filed after one of the families agreed to cooperate.)

Such cases stand or fall on fears of stigma and shame, rather than intimidation. Marci Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University, said victims who cooperate with police risk their future on the hope that they will not be identified. “I’ve heard a number of victims who told me that their lives are literally destroyed, ruined,” Hamilton said. “They will never marry if anyone finds out they were assaulted.”

Even in cases not involving rabbis or other respected community figures, leaders within Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox community still often pressure families, according to Jaus. “It’s not just well respected rabbis or someone from school” acting as a perpetrator that sparks community pressure, she said.

Teresa Huizar, executive director of the National Children’s Alliance, said such concerns are typical of conservative religious communities. “The shame created around abuse ought to be exclusively carried on the shoulders of the abuser,” Huizar said. Instead, shame is displaced onto victims and their families, representing “a shifting of moral responsibility and weight from the offender to the victim.”

Hannah Rubin contributed reporting for this story.



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Sexual Abuse Trial of Brooklyn Man Begins
By Sharon Otterman
New York Times - November 26, 2012

The abuse began when the girl was 12 years old, prosecutors in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn said on Monday. She was sent to a prominent man in her ultra-Orthodox Jewish community for counseling, and prosecutors said the man sexually molested her over the next three years.  

But lawyers defending the man, Nechemya Weberman, 54, of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, told a far different story during the opening arguments of his trial. The girl, a defense lawyer told the jury, had hatched the sordid tale of abuse as an act of revenge against Mr. Weberman and against a religious community she found stifling and rulebound. 

As proceedings began during the trial of Mr. Weberman, who is accused of 88 counts of sexual abuse of a minor, it became clear that the community itself, as well as Mr. Weberman, would undergo scrutiny during what is expected to be an emotional week of sexually explicit and culturally intricate testimony. 

Both the prosecution and the defense informed the jury that the Satmar Hasidic community, to which Mr. Weberman and the girl belonged, was so rigid that questions from a young girl about something as simple as the proper length of a skirt could lead to mandatory counseling, and even expulsion from school. The accuser in this case, both sides said, was just that kind of girl: a free spirit whose questioning and challenges to authority landed her in trouble. 

“She was going off the path,” said Kevin O’Donnell, an assistant district attorney. “She was being a little bit different.” In response, Mr. O’Donnell said, she was branded a “heretic” by her Satmar girls’ school, the United Talmudical Academy in Williamsburg, and her parents were required to send her to therapy. 

What happened next is in dispute. The prosecution says that Mr. Weberman, the counselor whom the girl began seeing, forced the girl to perform oral sex on him on multiple occasions. He is also accused of touching her breasts and vagina during sessions, which were held mostly in his home office. The prosecution said he was unlicensed in any mental health profession. 

“When you think about it,” Mr. O’Donnell said, the girl’s parents “were actually paying the defendant to have sex with their daughter,” which he did, “over and over again.” 

The girl, who turns 18 next week, told a licensed counselor in 2011 at a new school outside of her neighborhood about the abuse allegations, and that counselor reported them, Mr. O’Donnell said. “She eventually got the courage to come forward,” he said. 

Lawyers for Mr. Weberman, however, argue that the young woman fabricated the allegations because she was furious at Mr. Weberman for what she thought was a betrayal of her trust. At age 15, they said, she had revealed to Mr. Weberman that she had a boyfriend — a serious breach of the community’s stringent rules — and then, a defense lawyer said, she concluded that he told her parents about it. 

“There was only one answer,” said George Farkas, the defense lawyer, “vengeance and revenge against Nechemya Weberman, and through this, to bring down the entire community that either supported him, or of which he was a part.” 

Mr. Farkas also argued that the girl’s family had a business dispute with Mr. Weberman that may have also played a part in a desire for revenge. 

Mr. Weberman’s accuser is expected to testify on Tuesday. Mr. Weberman is expected to take the stand in his own defense as early as Thursday. 

Accused molester Nechemya Weberman appears to menacingly stare at teenage accuser through glass door.
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Accused molester Nechemya Weberman appears to menacingly stare at teenage accuser through glass door

By Joanna Molloy

New York Daily News - November 28, 2012

 

The 17-year-old girl was having a moment of peace in an interview room during recess in the trial of Weberman, whom she has accused of sexually abusing her four times a week for three years starting from the time she was 12.

Court officers had to move an accused molester back into a courtroom in Brooklyn Supreme Court Wednesday after he appeared to menacingly stare at his teenage accuser through a glass door.

The 17-year-old girl was having a moment of peace in an interview room during recess in the trial of Nechemya Weberman, whom she has accused of sexually abusing her four times a week for three years starting from the time she was 12.

But when the beautiful teenager looked up, she saw Weberman, staring at her through the glass long enough to set the officers scrambling.

George Farkas, a member of Weberman’s defense team, was quick to call the menacing allegation “pure unadulterated bulls---.”

But Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, director of the Center for Jewish Family Life, which publishes the children's book "Let's Play Safe!" about how kids can protect themselves from molesters, told the Daily News, “I was there. I saw it.”

She was having none of it, heading calmly back to the witness stand in her Ugg boots and chic outfit, looking nothing like the covered-up daughter of the Satmar sect she once was. Now it was her turn to stare Weberman down, as she coolly answered lawyer Michael Farkas’ questions about a boyfriend she dared to have, known in court as Mr. S.

Farkas asked about her parents’ opposition to her romance.

What the jury didn’t hear was that the girl’s father, at Weberman’s suggestion, set up a video camera that recorded her lovemaking, and that the boyfriend was busted on statutory rape charges, later dropped. Weberman’s defense is that this girl, then 15, concocted her entire accusation in revenge for his betrayal.

It is difficult to imagine a girl more trapped in a free country. Weberman, 54 and a fellow member of the Satmar Hasidic sect, was not only her father’s business partner, he was her unlicensed therapist. Yeshiva officials sent her to him when she dared to wear sheer tights to school and write poetry. He insisted on seeing her four times a week, when the alleged abuse, including oral sex, took place.

There were no Satmars there to support the girl, but the court was filled with Lubavitcher and other Orthodox Jews.

“We are an insular community — with us it’s not six degrees of separation, it’s two or three,” said Ezra Max, a teacher. “So for children or young adults who’ve been abused, it’s an additional challenge for them to come forward.”

“I just think she’s so brave,” said a girl who identified herself as the best friend of the witness. “I’m just so proud of her.”
 

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Accuser in Orthodox Abuse Trial Testified out of ‘Responsibility’
By Pervaiz Shallwani
Washington Post - November 30, 2012

The young woman who accused a respected ultra-Orthodox Jewish counselor of sexual abuse wrapped up her testimony Friday afternoon, telling jurors that she came forward because she felt a sense of “responsibility.”

Asked by prosecutors why she decided to step forward after three years of allegedly being abused by Nechemya Weberman, 54 years old, the 17-year-old testified, “I felt like I had a responsibility.”

“I didn’t want anybody else to go through what I went through,” she said.

Asked why she did not come forward sooner, the girl said ”I thought they would never believe me, because he is supposedly a God in Williamsburg.”

The girl also told jurors that Weberman made her watch pornography on a computer in his office.

She  spent more than 15 hours over four days on the stand in Brooklyn Supreme Court. The majority of the young woman’s testimony came during tough questioning from defense attorneys, who argue the girl singled out their client and the Satmar sect because of its ultra-Orthodox policies as pay back for the arrest of a former love interest.

Weberman is accused of sexually abusing the girl dozens of times in his Williamsburg home and office over a three-year span beginning when she was 12 years old.

At one point Friday, the trial had to be halted when the accuser started crying as defense attorney Michael Farkas questioned her about specific details from earlier testimony describing some of the alleged sexual acts committed by Weberman.

The trial has put the insular Satmar Hasidic community, an ultra-Orthodox sect of Judaism, under the spotlight, drawing packed crowds each day, with some having to wait outside in hopes of getting a courtroom seat.

For a second day, court officers checked the cell phones of all spectators before they entered the courtroom and an undercover officer kept watch over the alleged victim while she was in the courthouse.

Cell phones were banned from the audience on Thursday after four men were arrested for allegedly taking photos in the courtroom, including one of the victim while she was on the stand.

The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office charged the four men on Friday with criminal contempt, a misdemeanor.

The trial, which was originally expected to last a week, continues Monday with the girl’s parents expected to testify for the prosecution. Weberman may testify in his defense later in the week.

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Four orthodox Jewish men arrested after allegedly photographing sex abuse victim on witness stand
By Julia Dahl
 CBS News - November 30, 2012

Nechemya Weberman

(CBS) NEW YORK - Four orthodox Jewish men were arrested Thursday for allegedly taking pictures of a teenage girl while she testified she was sexually abused by another orthodox man.

The men were attending the trial of Nechemya Weberman, who is accused of forcing the girl, who was sent to him for counseling at the age of 12, to perform oral sex on him over a period of three years.

The New York Times reports that according to a Brooklyn prosecutor's spokesperson, the men allegedly uploaded at least one of the photographs, taken on cell phones, to Twitter.

"The message they're trying to send to victims in this community is to keep quiet," says Ben Hirsch, the president of Survivors for Justice, an advocacy and educational group on issues of sexual abuse within the orthodox community. "If you step out of line, you're not safe. The judge, the DA, they cannot protect you. We're going to get you. We're going to expose you."

Weberman and the alleged victim, now 17, are both members of the ultra-orthodox Satmar sect, an insular Jewish community based in Brooklyn, N.Y. The girl was reportedly sent to Weberman for counseling because she was behaving in a "rebellious" manner, including reading People magazine and wearing stockings that were not considered thick enough to adhere to the strict modesty standards of the community.

"To an outsider, the reasons they were forcing her into counseling are hard to fathom," says Hirsch. But, he says, the girl's parents "trusted" Weberman, and were told that if she did not receive his counseling, she would be kicked out of school.

Weberman is accused of, among other things, forcing the girl to perform oral sex on him during these "counseling" sessions.

"He is charismatic," says Hirsch. "And he was the go-to guy for 'troubled' kids. If people believed their child was leaving the fold they would go to him. Parents sought him out and trusted him."
Hirsch says that he wasn't surprised to learn of the alleged photographing, saying that the leadership of the ultra-orthodox community sees the girl's accusations and testimony as "dragging the community through the mud."

"This conduct is par for the course," says Hirsch. "If you don't toe the line, there are no rules."

Over the summer, four men from the Satmar sect were arrested for allegedly attempting to keep the girl from testifying against Weberman by offering her a $500,000 bribe. According to the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, Jacob Berger, Joseph Berger, Hertzka Berger and Abraham Rubin were charged with counts including aggravated harassment and coercion. The case is pending.

The four men arrested on Thursday have been identified by the Brooklyn prosecutor as Joseph Fried, Yona Weisman, Abraham Zupnick and Lemon Juice. They are expected to be arraigned on charges of criminal contempt Friday afternoon.

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4 charged over photos of teen accuser at N.Y. sex trial
By Michael Winter
USA Today - November 30, 2012

6:38PM EST November 30. 2012 - Four Brooklyn men face contempt charges for allegedly taking courtroom photos of a teenage girl as she testified against an Orthodox Jewish leader she accused of sexually abusing her. One iPhone image was posted to Twitter.

New York state bans photography in courtrooms without approval.

The 17-year-old girl testified that Nechemya Weberman, 54, molested her from ages 12 to 15 during religious counseling in his apartment office, the New York Daily News says. She was sent to him "because she objected to wearing thick tights and other clothing she considered overly modest," the paper writes.

The four supporters of Weberman -- Lemon Juice, Abraham Zupnick, Joseph Fried and Yona Weisman -- were led in handcuffs Thursday from the courtroom of Supreme Court Justice John Ingram. They also allegedly took cellphone photos Wednesday as the girl testified. She was expected to return to the stand Friday.

"This is on the Internet now!" Ingram said angrily. "It's probably streamed all over the world."
"What you have done, apparently, is take the photos in the courtroom yesterday and today," he continued. "You know about the law; you know about the Torah; you know about rabbinical courts. This is a civil court!"

The New York Post characterized the photos as "gangland tactics to intimidate a teen as she bravely testified."

In June, a man was charged after he allegedly offered the teen $500,000 to drop the charges, and three other Weberman supporters were accused of intimidation.

After the four men were removed, the judge ordered all spectators to surrender their phones, noting that photos were also taken of Weberman and a defense lawyer, the Post says.

"I don't know what's wrong with you people! Turn off your phones!" Ingram railed.
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Intimidation of Orthodox Jewish Teen Continues at Sexual Abuse Trial
By Joe Coscarelli
The New Yorker - November 30, 2012
 

The highest profile case in the rash of sexual abuse allegations within Brooklyn's insular Orthodox Jewish community was hit with another disturbing twist in the courtroom yesterday. During the alleged victim's testimony against her former therapist Nechemya Weberman, who is charged with 88 counts of sexual misconduct and molestation, four Hasidic men were detained for taking pictures of the anonymous accuser. "You know about the Torah, you know about rabbinical courts. This is a civil court!" Supreme Court Justice John Ingram reportedly boomed. "Your phones will be held for possible criminal prosecution. You may wish to avail yourself of counsel." But intimidation tactics have been common in this case.

The accuser, now 17, has testified for 12 hours over three days and is expected to continue in court today. "I wanted to die rather than live with myself," she said, alleging that she was touched inappropriately and forced to perform oral sex on Weberman for three years. "I didn't know how to fight. I was numb." She visited Weberman twice a week for counseling meant to get her "back on the spiritual path."

According to the New York Post, "the alleged victim was left trembling after Weberman allegedly glared at her through a glass door to the courthouse conference room where she sat during a break in her testimony." The door has since been covered with paper.

Before the trial, four men were charged with threatening the victim's boyfriend and offering a $500,000 bribe to drop the charges. The accuser also testified that her nieces had problems at school and her father lost his business after she came forward against Weberman, an influential presence in the community.

The courtroom madness yesterday could result in charges of criminal contempt and witness intimidation against four men, identified as Lemon Juice, Abraham Zupnick, Joseph Fried, and Yona Weisman. "This is on the Internet now," the livid judge said. "It's probably streamed all over the world."

"Now we have to take all their phones, just like in a gang trial," a law-enforcement source told the Post. "It's the same thing you have with the Bloods or the Crips."

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SICK SEX SHOCKER: I had to reenact porn, alleged teen victim of Hasidic leader Nechemya Weberman testifies
New York Daily News - December 1, 2012

17-year-old claims he showed her porn, then made her reenact the sex acts during their closed-door molestation sessions

The alleged teenage victim of Satmar Hasidic leader Nechemya Weberman testified Friday that he showed her pornography and then made her reenact the sex acts during their closed-door molestation sessions.

I had to “copy what was in the porn,” the beautiful blond 17-year-old testified in Brooklyn Supreme Court. “I remember it happening a lot.”

During her fourth grueling day on the stand, the teen detailed why she hid her torment, which allegedly lasted for three years, beginning in 2007 when she was 12.

“Everybody respected him, he was a leader,” she said of Weberman, 54, whom she described as a member of the powerful modesty committee, which enforces the morality rules of the insular sect.
She never broke down on the stand, even when confronted with intimate details of her tumultuous early teens.

“I’m so happy that it’s over for now,” one of her close friends said outside court. “She’s a hero.”

Testimony by the recently married teenager was the key evidence in the high-stakes trial that has been marked by incidents of purported intimidation.

Three ultra-Orthodox men were arraigned Friday evening after they allegedly took photos inside the courtroom earlier this week — including one of the teen on the stand — and posted them on the Internet. Lemon Juice, Joseph Fried and Yona Weisman were charged with contempt of court. Juice had legally changed his name from Joel Weingarten, according to his friends, though it was unclear why.

Juice’s lawyer, Leopold Gross, insisted his client was actually a supporter of the teen — though his motivations remained a mystery.

All three were held on $5,000 bond. A friend of theirs, Moses Klein, pledged to bail out the alleged scuzzy shutterbugs.

A fourth man initially thought to have taken pictures was not charged due to lack of evidence.

In another bizarre twist, Fried, who runs a news service for the Satmar community, had been secretly recorded arguing with the alleged victim’s now-husband a few months ago.

“Even if it’s true, he shouldn’t go to jail,” Fried is heard saying of Weberman, according to the recording obtained by the Daily News and translated from Yiddish. “A Jew doesn’t belong in jail.”

The contentious conversation came after three men stripped a kosher certificate from the husband’s restaurant, leading to harassment charges against them.

Another Hasid was accused of offering the couple $500,000 in hush money to make the case go away.

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Mother says she paid $12,800 to ultra-Orthodox Jewish "counselor" who allegedly molested her daughter
CBS News / AP - December 4, 2012


CBS/AP) NEW YORK - The mother of a teenage girl who is accusing a member of an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect of sexual abuse claims says she paid her daughter's alleged abuser, Nechemya Weberman, $12,800 for "counseling" services that the girl's school demanded she receive.

The woman testified Monday that her daughter's Brooklyn school told her she had to send the then- 12-year-old girl to see Weberman - who was an unlicensed counselor - otherwise she'd be expelled from school, because she had questioned her teachers about their religion and had worn clothing that wasn't modest enough.

Prosecutors say the girl was molested by Weberman, 54, for years. Defense attorneys say the counselor is the victim of a vindictive child, angry that he had betrayed her trust.

The case has been a crash course for jurors about the customs and rules in Weberman's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, home to about 250,000 followers and the largest such community outside Israel. His trial has rocked their insular, tight-knit group, not only because of the shocking charges but also because the case is being played out in a public court and its guarded society strongly discourages going to outside authorities. 

Last week, four men were arrested when they allegedly snapped pictures of the plaintiff as she testified, then posted them online. And before the trial began, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes charged other men with trying to bribe the girl to drop the charges.

The girl, now 17, testified that she and her family were harassed and shunned for coming forward; her father lost his business and her nieces were kicked out of school. 

The girl testified for three days about the abuse, detailing that Weberman forced her to perform oral sex and act out porn films. She said the abuse lasted from 2007 to 2010. 

"I wanted to die rather than live with myself," the girl testified. "I didn't know how to fight. I was numb."

Weberman has pleaded not guilty to 88 charges of sexual abuse and misconduct. Defense attorneys said the girl fabricated the stories as an act of revenge because she had told Weberman she had a boyfriend at age 15, forbidden in her community, and believed he then told her parents.

"There was only one answer," defense attorney George Farkas said. "Vengeance and revenge against Nechemya Weberman, and through this, to bring down the entire community." 

The defense questioned why she didn't come forward sooner, and tried to pick apart inconsistencies in her statement. She admitted that she talked with Weberman about other things, confiding in him about her doubts on religion.

"It wasn't just touching," she said.

The Lingerie Shop at 4813 13th  Ave. in Brooklyn.

On Monday, psychiatrist Anne Melzter testified that often children and adolescents don't come forward because they develop feelings for their abuser and they don't want to get the abuser into trouble.

"They think it's their fault," she said. "They don't think they are going to be believed."

The allegations surfaced last year when the girl told a guidance counselor at a different school that she'd been molested. She eventually went to police.

The Associated Press typically doesn't identify people who say they are the victims of sexual assault.
The girl, who will be 18 this week and was recently married, was shunned, she said. Her community, the Satmar Hasidic sect, turned against her for going to police and for accusing such a well-respected man, her family said. Newspapers decried her story, and a fundraiser was held for Weberman. Leaders of the sect have expressed support for him.

But the girl has received growing support, and the courtroom was packed for days during her testimony. On Monday, her mother testified that she is a bright, loving, respectful girl, what any mother could wish. The girl and three other siblings out of seven in the family have since left the Satmar sect.

"Do you still love them?" Assistant District Attorney Kevin O'Donnell asked.

"Very much," she said.

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Hasidic counselor, Nechemya Weberman, suspected of sexual assault will testify  
New York Daily News - December 4, 2012

Nechema Weberman - Alleged Sex Offender, Unlicensed Counselor

The 54-year-old is accused by the teenager of forcing her to perform oral sex and reenact porn during three years of spiritual counseling that started when she was 12.
 
Nechemya Weberman is accused of sexually abusing girl he was counseling.
A once-respected Hasidic counselor accused of sexually assaulting a Brooklyn girl is expected to take the stand in his own defense Wednesday .

Nechemya Weberman, 54, is accused by the teenager of forcing her to perform oral sex and reenact porn during three years of spiritual counseling that started when she was 12.

Tuesday’s witnesses represented the torturous journey of the alleged victim — who turns 18 Wednesday — from a student who rebelled against the strict modesty rules at her Satmar school to a “depressed” teen who reported the purported abuse. In December 2010, social worker Sarah Fried testified in Brooklyn Supreme Court, the “very anxious” girl recounted her “trauma.”

“At the end of the session, she uttered the words ‘I was molested,’” Fried testified, “then ran out of the office.”

It wasn’t until February 2011 that the girl named Weberman - an accusation the defense contends was motivated by revenge upon learning the counselor set up her boyfriend to be arrested.

The teen ended up at Weberman’s home office in 2007 after having trouble at her school, where the thickness of her tights was constantly examined.

“Her modesty was not like the other girls’,” said Benzion Feuerwerger, the principal of the girls school at United Talmudic Academy in Williamsburg.

He added that the school demanded the girl’s parents pay $12,800, mostly as an upfront fee for Weberman’s services, if they wanted their daughter to stay enrolled.


The principal, who said he had no secondary education beyond yeshivas, was also asked if he knows about Va’ad Hatznius, a Hasidic squad that enforces modesty rules and to which prosecutors say Weberman belongs.

“It doesn’t exist, as far as I know,” Feuerwerger said, to gasps in the packed courtroom. The modesty patrol is a well-known presence in the Satmar community.

Having Weberman take the stand is tactic that’s not without risks. During pretrial hearings last summer, prosecutors claimed six other women have made allegations against the defendant, but none agreed to press charges, which barred them from addressing the jury.
Under exceptional circumstances, court insiders said, Weberman's testimony might open the door to allow other alleged victims to be heard.

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Weberman testifies he 'never ever' sexually assaulted young girl, says he didn’t know anything about lingerie bought by charity he founded 
By Oren Yaniv
New York Daily News - December 5, 2012

Prominent Hasidic counselor stands accused of forcing a Brooklyn girl to perform oral sex, as well as watch and reenact porn, over a three-year period, beginning when she was 12.

A prominent Hasidic counselor said he “never ever” sexually assaulted a beautiful Brooklyn girl, and testified he didn’t know anything about lingerie bought by a charity he founded.

 

Nechemya Weberman, taking the stand in a child-sex-abuse case, acknowledged Wednesday that he founded a charity and used it to pay for his salary and his kids’ education.

 

Weberman stands accused of forcing a Brooklyn teen to perform oral sex, as well as watch and reenact porn, over a three-year period, beginning when she was 12. 

The 54-year-old defendant testified he did not inappropriately touch the alleged victim, who turned 18 Wednesday.
Prosecutors also raised the specter that Weberman may have sexually abused other teens — allegations that were also denied in court.

Presenting himself as a “rabbinical counselor,” Weberman, said he started a not-for-profit organization called B’lev V’nefesh, Hebrew for “in heart and soul,” around 2000. He said it was used to raise money for those who can’t afford his services.

He was then confronted with financial records showing that the charity’s credit cards were used at BMG Corset & Lingerie, The Lingerie Shop and other undergarment stores.

“Me, myself, I’m not aware of this,” Weberman said. “This is the first time I heard about it.”

The charity — whose only principals are the defendant and his wife, Chaya Golda — was also used to pay tuition for the private Satmar yeshiva their kids attended and for Weberman’s salary. In one month, expenses came close to $12,000, a prosecutor said.

“Did you use this not-for-profit for your own personal gain?” Assistant District Attorney Kevin O’Donnell asked him.

“Yes, I did,” Weberman replied.

Also Wednesday, a woman named Baila Gluck, 23, testified about residing at Weberman’s home office for a couple of years as a teen. She stayed in the same apartment as the alleged victim in the case being tried had claimed she was forced to perform oral sex and reenact porn starting in 2007.

Gluck said after she had no place to stay following troubles at home, “He offered (for me) to come live at his house.” She added that during her time there, two other girls occasionally stayed in the flat.

One of those girls has told authorities she caught Weberman and Gluck in a compromising position. That person refused to testify for fear of retribution, a source said.

But Gluck, asked if one of the girls ever walked in and saw her sitting on Weberman’s lap while he had an erection, replied “No.”

She also denied being taken by Weberman to buy lingerie and bras and also a claim that she told the other housemate, when discussing the counselor, “I had to do what I had to do to get by.”

Weberman, a father of 10, spent about four hours on the stand and was the final witness in the high-profile trial.

The defendant, a well-regarded member of the Satmar sect, was once the driver of Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum, he testified.

The insular group split into two after its leader’s death in 2006 and the counselor agreed he’s one of only a handful of people who are respected by both warring factions.

Children who had issues following the sect’s strict rules would be referred to him by schools or rabbis, he said, and he would then charge their parents about $150 an hour to counsel them.

In her testimony last week, the alleged victim testified she objected to the sect’s stringent dress code, which required thicker tights than she cared to wear.

When he first counseled the teen who brought the charges against him, “She was very quiet, looking down, closed in,” Weberman said. She slowly opened up, he added, discussing religious questions and problems she had at school and her home.

“At the beginning, we spoke a lot and I spent a lot of time with her to understand what bothers her,” he said. Weberman acknowledged the sessions cost her parents tens of thousands of dollars.

He was asked by his lawyer about the aim of the counseling sessions.

“To save her life,” Weberman replied.

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Brooklyn criminal courtroom resembles nightclub as members of the Satmar Hasidic Jewish sect show up to support Nechemya Weberman

Weberman took the stand to defend himself against charges that he sexually molested a beautiful Satmar teenager while he was supposed to be her therapist. Lubavitcher and Modern Orthodox Jews showed up to support the woman, sequestered in another room, quietly celebrating, if you could call it that, her 18th birthday.
 New York Daily News - December 5, 2012
With a costumed crowd pressing against velvet ropes begging to be let in, the Brooklyn criminal courtroom resembled a nightclub Wednesday.The iconoclastic garb of the Satmar Hasidic Jewish sect was unmistakable as members showed up to support Nechemya Weberman when he took the stand to defend himself against charges that he sexually molested a beautiful Satmar teenager while he was supposed to be her therapist. Lubavitcher and Modern Orthodox Jews showed up to support the woman, sequestered in another room, quietly celebrating, if you could call it that, her 18th birthday.

Ladies in wigs and hats, with long skirts and arms and legs covered, sat apart from the men in dark suits, wearing yarmulkes, their hair in forelocks, as the jury as diverse as Brooklyn itself stared out over the insular community and got a lesson in Hasidism 101 from the testimony.

Like the fact that what you wear is no joke, as the alleged victim found out when she began to break the dress code with short skirts and sheer tights, and when she began to share pop songs like “Love Can Kill You” and sneak off to Hollywood movies.

The recalcitrant teen had come to the attention of an internal committee of men called the Va’ad Hatznius, which helps enforce modesty rules — among 613 commandments Satmar members believe must be followed.

According to the testimony of another young woman who'd taken the stand Wednesday morning, you don't want to mess with Va’ad Hatznius.

“Isn't it true that masked individuals came into your bedroom in the middle of the night and seized your cell phone?” no-nonsense prosecutor Kevin O'Donnell asked Baila Gluck. “And that this is the type of action Va’ad Hatznius takes when Satmar don't follow the rules? And wasn't it traumatic for you?” Yes. Yes. And yes.

But it was nothing like the trauma Weberman's accuser said she suffered as he allegedly forced her to perform oral sex and recreate scenes from porn movies. She had been ordered by her religious school's principal, Weberman's cousin, to go to Weberman for therapy, which he had no license to provide. And her parents were forced to pay for it.

If she didn't get therapy, she would be thrown out of the school, Weberman admitted. Though Weberman adamantly denied ever molesting her, the girl says the abuse went on for three years.

A young Satmar woman dressed modestly but wearing green nail polish against her husband's wishes told the Daily News, “I don't have time to come here, but I'm compelled to listen for myself. I need to know the truth.”

The victim of molestation for five years as a child, Debbie Teller set up the website adkanenough.com — Enough is Enough — to post names of sex offenders in the Orthodox community worldwide. Since the Weberman trial began, her site’s visitors have spiked by the thousands.

Sex abuse isn't greater within the Hasidic community than outside, said social worker Carole Sher, who helps run the SOURI Hotline, Support Orthodox Victims of Rape and Incest.

But there's been a lot of covering up in the past. But now with more receptive rabbis and greater communication, that's changing.”

The Brooklyn jury learned that if a Jewish person reported another Jewish person to the police, they would be labeled a “moser” — informer — and ostracized as strongly as a Mob rat.

With the Internet, the thin black line of silence in the religious community has been erased, agreed Joey DiAngello, perhaps one of the most colorful people attending the trial.

Born Yoel Deutsch into the Satmar sect 32 years ago, DiAngello, a heavy-metal drummer with Slayer and Iron Maiden tatoos on his arms, told The News he was raped at the age of seven in a mikvah, or public bath. He's set up the Facebook pages War on Vaad Hatznius and Survivors for Justice.

“I've gotten tweets from people calling me a self-hating Jew, but I really want to help Jewish kids in the same situation I was in,” he says. “It's like metal. I have something to say, and if you don't like it, I'll turn it up even louder.”

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Nechemya Weberman Takes Stand In Sex Abuse Trial, Denies Inappropriate Relations With Teen

Says Accuser First Cursed At Him Then Opened Up To 'Tell Me Things'

CBS News New York - December 5, 2012 7:30 PM

The counselor accused of sexually abusing a teenager for three years in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community testified Wednesday and said it never happened.

On the day his accuser turned 18 years old, Nechemya Weberman walked into court and told the jury he never sexually abused anyone inside his Brooklyn home office where he counseled people.

“Have you ever inappropriately touched (her)?” his lawyer asked.

“Never, ever,” was Weberman’s answer.

The well-known Weberman is accused of sexually abusing the then-12-year-old from 2007 to 2010 during counseling sessions.

In court, he remembered what she said during their first meeting.

“She literally asked me, ‘Why should I trust you? Why should I talk to you?’ She said I looked like a ‘Chassidish (expletive).’”

Over time, Weberman said he gained her trust.

“She started to open up, tell me things,” Weberman testified.

But after a few years of successful counseling came the breaking point — the arrest of a boyfriend she wasn’t supposed to have because of her strict religion.

The crux of the defense team’s case is that the alleged victim’s accusation is all driven by revenge.

Weberman strongly denied every having inappropriate relations with the young woman.

The 54-year-old father of 10 said he began counseling members of the Satmar community several years earlier.

Defense Attorney: “Did she say you were responsible for (her boyfriend’s) arrest?”
Weberman: “Yes.”

Defense Attorney: “Did she say she knew you told all her secrets to her father?”
Weberman: “Yes.”

Defense Attorney: “Did she tell you ‘we are going to get you?’”

Weberman: “Yes.”

Weberman testified he was arrested not long after that and didn’t see his accuser again until last week, when she told the jury he had sexually abused her for three years.

Weberman has been charged with 88 counts of sexual abuse against a minor.
Closing arguments in the case will be Thursday. 
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Hasidic counselor accused of molesting teen to testify
A brief timeline of the sexual abuse case that has rocked the Satmar community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn
BY Amy S. Choi 
Salon - December 5, 2012



Nechemya Weberman, accused of orally raping and sexually abusing a teenage girl from 2007 to 2010, is expected to take the stand in the New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn this week. His accuser, now 17 years old, testified last week against Weberman, a pillar and renowned “counselor” in the Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Weberman is accused of 88 accounts of sexual abuse of a minor from the time the girl was 12 until she was 15.

Convicted Sex Offender - Nechemya Weberman

If you haven’t followed this case, one of the few sexual abuse cases in the ultra-orthodox community to be exposed to secular justice, here is a brief timeline. (Allison Yarrow has a thorough run-down of the case at The Daily Beast.)

2007: The accuser, a 12-year-old at the time, begins questioning authority at United Talmudical Academy, her ultra-religious school. Her parents are forced to send her to counseling for her “heretic” behavior.

2007-2010: During years of locked-door “therapy” sessions, Weberman (who doesn’t have any kind of psychotherapy or social work license) allegedly abuses the girl. In addition to oral sex and touching, he forces her to watch pornography and then mimic the acts, often while his own children and wife are in the next room.

2009: The girl breaks religious law when she begins dating Jeremy Solomon. She confides in Weberman about the relationship.

2010: Solomon is arrested and charged with statutory rape after a sex tape is discovered, revealing him and the girl. The charges are eventually dropped, but the girl testifies that she believes her father and Weberman conspired to secretly film the couple and file charges.

2011: The girl files abuse charges against Weberman. Going public with the abuse to secular authorities, rather than rabbinical ones, creates a massive rift in the community.

And fast forward to this year…

May 2012: The Satmar community organizes a huge fundraiser to benefit Weberman. Hershy Deutsch, the accuser’s boyfriend at the time, and now husband, organizes a counter-rally.

June 2012: Four Williamsburg men are arrested and charged with intimidation after offering the accuser $500,000 to drop the case.

November 26, 2012: Trial starts, and the girl completes 15 hours of testimony. Four men are arrested and charged with criminal contempt in the second degree for taking cell phone pictures of the accuser and distributing her image over email and Twitter. The girl’s court room security and privacy is increased after court officers find Weberman staring at her threateningly through a window in the court room.

And now, we wait to see what Weberman has to say for himself. He has somewhat surprisingly not had many supporters in the court room, while many religious Jews have come forward to support the accuser. Those supporters, however, are mostly from outside the Williamsburg Satmar community. So far, his attorneys’ primary defense seems to be that the accuser is a “free spirit” and that she was acting in revenge over the sex tape (read: teenage accuser is a vengeful slut).

And we wait to see how the press continues to cover the trial. While the media has mostly been restrained, veiled misogyny and anti-Semitism wouldn’t be unanticipated. If anything, coverage has been perhaps too restrained. The New York Times, which has done a decent job of covering the case (squeamishness over using the word “rape” aside), made a point to note that the trial would include “sexually explicit and culturally intricate testimony.”

Let’s call a spade a spade. Culturally intricate = misogynistic. Sexually explicit = sexual abuse. This case is about exposing the abuse of power. Let’s not have it expose our timidity, too.


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Hasidic Man Denies Abuse of Young Girl He Counseled

By Sharon Otterman 
New York TImes - December 5, 2012

Nechemya Weberman, the unlicensed ultra-Orthodox Jewish counselor charged with repeatedly sexually abusing a young girl in his care, testified in a Brooklyn courtroom on Wednesday that he had “never, ever” touched her inappropriately.

“What were you looking to do in terms of her?” asked Michael Farkas, a defense attorney, as Mr. Weberman testified in his own defense. 

“To save her life,” Mr. Weberman said. 

He spoke on the concluding day of witness testimony in a closely watched trial in State Supreme Court; it is one of the first times a prominent member of the insular Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg has faced child sexual abuse charges before a secular court. Closing arguments are expected to begin Thursday. 

The unusual decision by Mr. Weberman, 54, to take the stand in his own defense turned the trial into a credibility battle between Mr. Weberman and the accusing witness, an 18-year-old who claimed over four days of testimony last week that she had been forced to perform oral sex on him during counseling sessions, when she was between the ages of 12 and 15. 

Dressed in the traditional long black coat and white shirt of the Satmar Hasidim, Mr. Weberman testified that he had first begun counseling his accuser in 2008, not in 2007, as she had claimed. He testified that he billed $150 an hour to see her, and also charged her family $1,500 for a trip upstate that he took alone with her. He denied that anything untoward had happened. 

He based his testimony on work records, but under further questioning from prosecutors, Mr. Weberman admitted that he did not always record his meetings with clients. Mr. Weberman also admitted in court that he had used the finances of a nonprofit corporation he runs to help the poor, called the Congregation of Classon, to pay private school tuition bills for his children. Lingerie purchases were also billed to its accounts, prosecutors said. 

“Maybe it did,” pay for lingerie, Mr. Weberman said of the foundation, “for certain individuals. I don’t know.” 

At least three troubled teenage girls have lived in his office apartment in recent years, Mr. Weberman said, but he could not remember if there were more. One of the girls, Baila Gluck, now 23, took the stand Wednesday morning and said that Mr. Weberman had always acted appropriately and that she was grateful to him for his help. 

Beyond the details of the accuser’s case, the testimony also shed light into the way the Satmar Hasidic community enforces its strict religious rules. Ms. Gluck testified that masked men from the religious modesty committee, based in Monroe, N.Y., had come into her bedroom at night when she was 15 or 16 years old to take away a cellphone that she was not permitted to have. The same committee, Mr. Weberman testified, regularly referred young boys and girls to him for counseling. 

Mr. Weberman testified that as an unlicensed counselor, he was not obligated to report allegations of child abuse to secular authorities, nor was he legally bound to respect the privacy of the young people he was counseling. As a result, he shared information given to him by the teenagers with their parents and schools, he said. 

At the center of Mr. Weberman’s defense is an example of that kind of information sharing. His lawyers have argued that his accuser invented her charges as an act of revenge, after she learned that when she was 15, Mr. Weberman had told her father about an 18-year-old boyfriend she had, leading to the boyfriend’s arrest. 

Mr. Weberman testified on Wednesday that he had indeed told the father, but had falsely assured the girl that he knew nothing about what had happened. 

“So she wouldn’t have known,” about his involvement said Kevin O’Donnell, an assistant district attorney. 

“Right,” Mr. Weberman said. 


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Weberman teen abuse trial questions Jewish group's customs

New York Daily News - December 6, 2012

Nechemya Weberman never looked once at the jury as prosecutor Linda Weinman offered up the lurid details of the 88 counts of sexual torment he allegedly wrought on the teenage victim he was paid to help.

If Nechemya Weberman had a guilty look in his eyes, the jurors never saw it. He didn’t look at them once as the prosecutor gave graphic details Thursday of the 88 counts of sexual torment he allegedly wrought upon a teenage girl he was paid to help.

If the jury finds Weberman guilty — now that lawyers have wrapped their case — the leaders of the insular Satmar Hasidic sect to which he belongs must ask themselves the same questions that dogged the Catholic Church in the wake of its own pedophilia scandals.

They must ask, did we enable him? Do our methods of reigning in rebellious young girls run counter to American law? Do we deny these girls freedoms they are entitled to, treating them as prisoners despite more than a century of hard-fought victories by women’s rights activists?

Instead, it seems this Williamsburg-based sect is operating under its own rules, some of which run counter to the law.

Satmar girls who break the sect’s stringent rules for modesty and behavior are sent by rabbis, teachers or their parents to “therapists” for “counseling” — more like one-on-one reeducation camps.

At the age of 12, Weberman’s beautiful blond accuser dared show her girlfriends a dance video from the family’s computer, a no-no for Satmars forbidden TV, radio and nonbusiness uses of the Internet.

“She lived in an insular, male-dominated society that forbade any contact with the outside world,” prosecutor Linda Weinman told the jury Thursday. “Accept your fate. Never question authority.”

The girl, already in the sights of the Satmar “modesty committee” — known to enter girls’ rooms to seize offending cell phones and clothing — was sent by her principal, Weberman’s cousin, for “therapy.”

Her counselor’s qualifications? He had been a worker in a pants factory, after leaving school in the 11th grade.

Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum

Oh, and he had also been a driver, albeit for the sect’s then-Grand Rebbe Moshe Teitelbaum.

Weberman wasn’t a licensed therapist at all.

But that was considered a positive thing, since ultra-Orthodox Jews believe any Jewish person who informs police or government agencies about a fellow Jew is a loathed informant, a “moser.”

Licensed therapists are required by law to report child molestation and domestic violence incidents.
As a nonlicensed therapist, Weberman could keep anything he heard within the Satmar community to himself.

Padlocking this girl even tighter in his grip, the young woman testified she would be expelled from her school if she tried to leave “therapy.” Her parents were forced to pay Weberman $150 an hour for this service.

But for three years, starting in March 2007 when she was 12 years old, he grotesquely manhandled her young body, Weinman told the jury as Weberman looked into a corner of the courtroom.
“I’m not doing anything wrong,” he allegedly told the girl.

She finally told a licensed therapist outside the community , who promptly reported Weberman to authorities.
Why hadn’t the alleged victim reported it to the top rabbis?

“I didn’t think they would believe me,” she testified in court.

With Oren Yaniv

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Profitable not-for-profits 
New York Post - December 7, 2012 

Satmar Hasidim — they’re just like everybody else!

New Yorkers got a look inside the insular culture of ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn this week thanks to the sexual-abuse trial of a prominent Hasidic leader in Williamsburg.

Despite all the outward oddities of the man on trial — his black suit, untrimmed beard and lengthy side-curls — it turns out he’s right smack in the mainstream of secular political life in New York.
He has a not-for-profit cash cow, too.

Nechemya Weberman, an unlicensed counselor accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in his care, testified Wednesday that he ripped off a charity he founded ostensibly to help poor Brooklynites.

“You used this not-for-profit for personal gain?” asked a Brooklyn prosecutor.

“Yes I did,” Weberman replied, admitting that he spent donations meant for his group, B’Lev V’Nefesh, on tuition for his kids’ yeshiva — and that its cash was also spent at stores like BMG Corset & Lingerie.

Creepy, sure. But par for the course in New York, where politicians routinely turn nonprofits into personal piggy banks.

For example:

* Shirley Huntley, a state senator from Queens, founded an empty-shell nonprofit called The Parents Network right before she took office in 2006. She steered $30,000 in taxpayer money to her niece, who ran the group, and tried to send even more before she was arrested this year.
* Larry Seabrook, a former city councilman from Brooklyn, was convicted of funneling $1.5 million in taxpayer funds to his mistress, his sister, two brothers and other pals through a network of nonprofit groups he controlled. He faces up to 180 years in prison.
* Pedro Espada, the former state senator from The Bronx, was convicted of looting $545,000 from his federally funded nonprofit health clinic to pay for vacations, lavish birthday parties and theater tickets. He then tapped the nonprofit for another $1 million to cover his legal fees.
* Brian McLaughlin, a former Queens assemblyman and powerful labor leader, steered $95,000 meant for a local nonprofit Little League to pals of his, just one piece of the $3.1 million he stole from public and private enterprises. He got 10 years in prison for his crimes.

Weberman, of course, holds no elective office — but he is a leader in his community and has abused its trust.

Just like the others.

Happily, Gov. Cuomo has noticed the pattern, promoting legislation that would cap the often sky-high salaries at nonprofits that benefit from state funds.

But that won’t solve the whole problem.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has pursued abusers like Huntley, but since religious charities don’t have to register with the state, Weberman’s nonprofit wasn’t on the AG’s radar before this week.

That needs to change — fast.

Time to get cracking, Albany.


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After Nechemya Weberman, Hasidic Satmar sect considers sending rebel teens away

By Simone Weischelbaum with Oren Yaniv
New York Daily News - December 10, 2012

  

The idea comes as the jury weighs charges against the counselor, Weberman, who prosecutors said molested a then-12-year-old girl referred to him because she wore supposedly indecent clothing, read People magazine and questioned God’s authority in a religious school class.

Prominent Orthodox leader Nechemya Weberman, 

at State Supreme Court in Brooklyn for jury deliberations 

on his trial for sexual abuse of a 12 year old girl.

Embarrassed by the sex abuse trial of a Hasidic counselor, leaders of Williamsburg’s pious Satmar sect are considering a different way to deal with rebellious teens: shipping them out of the country for treatment.

The idea comes as the jury weighs charges against the counselor, Nechemya Weberman, who prosecutors said molested a then-12-year-old girl referred to him because she wore supposedly indecent clothing, read People magazine and questioned God’s authority in a religious school class.

Without addressing the allegations against Weberman, a Satmar official told the Daily News that leaders are considering ways to avoid similar accusations by victims.

“This was a wakeup call; nobody denies that,” said Gary Schlesinger, who heads a nonprofit tied to Satmar leader Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum.

The Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Satmar community in south Williamsburg held a gethering and rally at the Williamsburg Armory Tuesday night, Dec. 4, 2012, in part to address issues surrounding the ongoing criminal trial of accused sex abuser Nechemya Weberman, a respected counselor in the community.

“Maybe we will send them to an Israeli program or a European program, and the kid will come back a different person.”

A verdict is expected this week. Meanwhile, the Satmar community — where self-styled modesty police crack down on perceived transgressions — is riven by the victim’s account.

“It’s a horrible embarrassment,” said Pearl Engelman, 65. “We represent ourselves as the Almighty’s children. We don’t want to be an embarrassment to God.”

Protestors held sighns and voiced their opposition to suppport of Nechemya Weberman, on trial in for alleged sexualy abusing a Hasidic girl years ago.

Some Satmars believe that it’s too late for that.

“It’s an embarrassment for the community that some are standing up for the abuser,” said Raizy Pollak, 19, who dropped out of the accuser’s yeshiva to protest the strict rules. “We need to stand up for the victim instead of pushing her down,” she added.

Supporters of the victim rallied last week, holding signs in Yiddish blasting perverts and molesters.

“Every single Jewish family is talking about this case. The grand rabbi (Teitelbaum) couldn’t even ignore it,” said real estate developer Joel Neuwirth, 22. “He had to address the issue.”

The rebbe did just that last week — and blamed the victim.

The Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Satmar community in south Williamsburg held a gethering and rally at the Williamsburg Armory Tuesday night, Dec. 4, 2012, in part to address issues surrounding the ongoing criminal trial of accused sex abuser Nechemya Weberman, a respected counselor in the community.

“A Jewish daughter has descended so low,” said Teitelbaum, according to a translation published by the Jewish blog, FailedMessiah.com. “There hasn’t been such a disgusting saga in (the history of religious) Jewry.”

Weberman was the driver for Teitelbaum’s late father Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum, under whose leadership the movement grew into one of the largest Hasidic groups in the world, with the majority of its 100,000 members living in Brooklyn.

Aaron Teitelbaum’s statement incensed supporters of Weberman’s alleged victim.

But Weberman has plenty of supporters.

“Weberman was trying to help her,” said Joel Weinstock, 31, a private tutor. “The rules are set forth by the rabbis. There is no reason to change.”

Outsiders see a community hoping not to draw attention to itself.

“They want to be seen as God-fearing and well-behaved,” said CUNY sociologist Samuel Heilman, who specializes in Jewish studies.

“The case is over whether the girl is deviant, or is Weberman deviant,” said Heilman. “It is all about deviance within the Satmar community.”

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Nechemya Weberman was convicted of 60 counts

By Vicki Polin

The Awareness Center - December 10, 2012 

Nechemya Weberman - Convicted Sex Offender

Nechemya Weberman was convicted of 60 counts, including sustained sex abuse of a child, endangering the welfare of a child and other counts. He faces 25 years in prison on the top charge and two to seven years on the lesser charges.  

The Awareness Center wants to thank the teenage survivor for her courage to come forward and speak the truth and her family for not caving into the political pressures that surrounded this case.  Both the survivor and her family members should be seen as heroes.  When ever they walk into a room everyone should stand up and applaud them for their heroic efforts. Fund also need to be raised to assist the survivor and her family members heal. 

 The Awareness Center also wants to thank the hundreds of people who supported this young brave woman during this important time of her life.

As a people and a nation we also must do what we can to help the family of Nechemya Weberman as they prepare for this family member to go to prison. Please read: "When A Family Member Molests: Reality, Conflict, and The Need For Support"

Vicki Polin, MA, LCPC, NCC
Founder and CEO
The Awareness Center, Inc. 

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Jury returns in abuse case of NY counselor 

Associated Press - December 10, 2012

NEW YORK — Deliberations have resumed in the trial of a New York religious counselor accused of sexually abusing a girl who came to him with questions about her faith.

Nechemya (nuh-HEHM'-yuh) Weberman has been charged with sustained sexual abuse against a child.

The accuser, who's now 18, testified that she was abused from the time she was 12 to 15 behind his locked office door.

The Brooklyn jurors returned Monday after deliberating for about an hour Friday.

The accuser says that she was afraid to come forward because Weberman was a powerful man in her ultra-orthodox Jewish community. The allegations surfaced in 2011 when she told a different counselor she had been abused.

Weberman is not a licensed counselor. He testified in his own defense that he "never, ever" touched her.


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NY Orthodox Counselor Convicted of Sex Abuse
By COLLEEN LONG 
Associated Press (NEW YORK) -  December 10, 2012 

A religious counselor in New York's ultra-orthodox Jewish community was convicted Monday of the sustained sexual abuse of a girl who came to him with questions about her faith.

The courtroom was silent as Nechemya Weberman was convicted of 60 counts, including sustained sex abuse of a child, endangering the welfare of a child and other counts. He faces 25 years in prison on the top charge and two to seven years on the lesser charges.

The 54-year-old defendant and his relatives stared down at the ground as the verdict was pronounced. Some of the accusers' supporters smiled quietly.

The accuser, now 18, told authorities Weberman abused her repeatedly from the time she was 12 until she was 15.

The case was a crash course for jurors about the customs and rules in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, home to about 250,000, the largest community outside Israel. It spotlighted the strict rules that govern the Satmar Hasidic sect.

Weberman is not a licensed counselor, but worked with families within his community for decades. The girl was sent to him because she had been questioning her faith, was dressing immodestly and showing an interest in boys, all violations of the sect's rules.

Prosecutors say Weberman molested the girl for years behind a locked office door. Defense attorneys argued the counselor was the victim of a vindictive child who was angry that he had betrayed her trust when he went to her parents after learning she had a boyfriend.

"When she found out that she had been betrayed, she went wild," defense attorney Stacey Richman said.

The trial has rocked the insular, tight-knit group, not only because of the shocking charges but also because the case was played out in a public court. The guarded society strongly discourages going to outside authorities.

The victim testified that she and her family were harassed and shunned for coming forward; her father lost his business and her nieces were kicked out of school.

During the trial, which began last week, three men were charged with criminal contempt for snapping images of the accuser on the witness stand with cellphone cameras and posting them online. And before the trial began, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes charged other men with trying to bribe the accuser to drop the charges.

The teen testified for three days about the abuse, detailing that Weberman forced her to perform oral sex and act out porn films. She said the abuse lasted from 2007 to 2010. Her family paid him $12,800 in counseling fees during that time, the victim's mother testified Monday.

"I wanted to die rather than live with myself," the accuser testified. "I didn't know how to fight. I was numb."
The Associated Press generally doesn't identify people who say they are the victims of sexual assault.

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Hasidic Man Found Guilty of Sexually Abusing Young Girl

By Sharon Otterman 

New York Times - December 10, 2012 

Nechemya Weberman, an unlicensed ultra-Orthodox Jewish counselor in Brooklyn’s tight-knit Satmar Hasidic community, was convicted on Monday of repeatedly sexually abusing a young girl in his care. 

A State Supreme Court jury found Mr. Weberman guilty on multiple counts — all the charges he was facing after a judge had consolidated the 88 charges brought by Mr. Hynes’s office. He faces at least 25 years in prison, according to The Associated Press. 

The verdict was a significant victory for Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, whose office has been criticized for not acting aggressively enough against sexual abusers in the borough’s large and politically connected Hasidic community. The case was a difficult one, because there was no physical evidence; the trial hinged on the credibility of Mr. Weberman and his accuser. 

The case also offered a rare window into how the Satmar community enforces its sexual values, particularly for young girls. 

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Jury finds Nechemya Weberman, Satmar Hasidic leader, guilty of molesting teenage girl he was paid to counsel 

By Oren Yaniv 

New York Daily News - December 10, 2012 

Weberman, guilty on 59 counts, is facing a maximum of 25 years in prison on the top count alone, prolonged sexual conduct against a child. The high-profile case cast light on the Satmar Hasidic community – and has also put pressure on Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes over the way he has managed such cases in the Orthodox Jewish community.

Guilty 59 times over.

A Brooklyn jury found Nechemya Weberman - a prominent figure in the Satmar Hasidic community - guilty Monday of sexually abusing a rebellious young girl he was paid to counsel.

The verdict came after an explosive two-week trial, where customs of the strict Williamsburg-based sect were aired in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

He is facing a maximum of 25 years on prison of the top count alone, prolonged sexual conduct against a child.

The main evidence against the 54-year-old counselor was testimony from the victim, who turned 18 last week. During four brutal days of testimony and cross-examination, the striking young woman recounted how she was forced to perform oral sex and reenact porn scenes during closed-door counseling sessions that started in 2007, when she was 12.

Her yeshiva referred her to Weberman because she flouted her sect's strict modesty rules and asked probing questions about the existence of God.

But instead of guidance, she was molested at every opportunity.

"I wanted to die," she testified of her torment.

Prosecutors offered no physical evidence of the sexual activity that took place inside Weberman's home office, which the trial revealed had been a flop house for other wayward teenage girls.
The counselor took the stand in his own defense, insisting he "never ever" inappropriately touched the teen. But he was forced to acknowledge that funds from his charity were used to pay for his kids' tuition and buy lingerie.

The defense team claimed the victim's accusations were fueled by revenge, after Weberman teamed up with her father to film her in bed with a former boyfriend - then used the footage to get the boyfriend arrested for statutory rape.

That case was dropped shortly before she made her complaint against Weberman.

The high-profile case was rocked by allegations that Weberman and his henchmen tried to intimidate the accuser. Then during the trial, three men illegally snapped her photo while she was on the witness stand, and it ended up being posted online.

The sordid, soap opera-like revelations in court rocked the insular Satmar Sect, which derives its practices from a strict interpretation of Judaism. The trial was also a major challenge to Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, who came under criticism for his handling of sex abuse cases in the Orthodox Jewish community.

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Nechemya Weberman Convicted in Sex Case

Brooklyn 'Therapist' Faces Possible 117 Years for Abusing Girl

Forward - December 10, 2012

A Brooklyn rabbi who acted as a therapist was convicted of sexually abusing a Brooklyn girl, authorities said Monday.

Nechemya Weberman, an unlicensed therapist, was found guilty of 59 separate counts of abuse and faces up to 117 years in prison.

“The victim showed great courage to come forward in a very difficult time. Hopefully, this verdict will lead to the understanding for other women that they can come forward as well,” said Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.

Weberman faced 88 counts of sexual misconduct for alleged sexual encounters between him and the female accuser, whose parents sent her for therapy sessions to the unlicensed therapist at the recommendation of the child’s school. The incidents allegedly took place while the accuser was between 12 and 15 years old.

The case has long been controversial with some in the community backing Weberman and accusing the accuser of concocting the abuse account.

Supporters of Weberman clashed with the victim’s supporters in a Williamsburg street last spring.
In June, four men from the Satmar Hasidic community were arrested for allegedly offering the accuser $500,000 in an attempt to silence her.

Four spectators at the trial were arrested for taking photos of the accuser during her testimony.

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NY Orthodox counselor convicted of sex abuse

The Associated Press - December 10, 2012

NEW YORK - A religious counselor in New York's ultra-orthodox Jewish community was convicted Monday of sexually abusing a girl who came to him with questions about her faith. 

Nechemya Weberman was convicted of 60 counts, including sustained sex abuse of a child, endangering the welfare of a child and other counts. He faces 25 years in prison on the top charge and two to seven years on the lesser charges.

The accuser, now 18, told authorities he abused her repeatedly from the time she was 12 until she was 15.

The case was a crash course for jurors about the customs and rules in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, home to about 250,000, the largest community outside Israel. It spotlighted the strict rules that govern the Satmar Hasidic sect.

Weberman, 54, is not a licensed counselor, but worked with families within his community for decades. The girl was sent to him because she had been questioning her faith, was dressing immodestly and showing an interest in boys, all violations of the sect's rules.

Prosecutors say Weberman molested the girl for years behind a locked office door. Defense attorneys argued the counselor was the victim of a vindictive child who was angry that he had betrayed her trust when he went to her parents after learning she had a boyfriend.

"When she found out that she had been betrayed, she went wild," defense attorney Stacey Richman said.

The trial has rocked the insular, tight-knit group, not only because of the shocking charges but also because the case was played out in a public court. The guarded society strongly discourages going to outside authorities.

The victim testified that she and her family were harassed and shunned for coming forward; her father lost his business and her nieces were kicked out of school.

During the trial, which began last week, three men were charged with criminal contempt for snapping images of the accuser on the witness stand with cellphone cameras and posting them online. And before the trial began, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes charged other men with trying to bribe the girl to drop the charges.

The girl testified for three days about the abuse, detailing that Weberman forced her to perform oral sex and act out porn films. She said the abuse lasted from 2007 to 2010. Her family paid him $12,800 in counseling fees during that time, the girl's mother testified Monday.

"I wanted to die rather than live with myself," the girl testified. "I didn't know how to fight. I was numb."

The Associated Press generally doesn't identify people who say they are the victims of sexual assault.

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Hasidic leader convicted after repeatedly forcing himself on girl he was counseling  
By JOSH SAUL
New York Post - December 10, 2012

A once-revered ultra-orthodox Jewish leader was convicted in Brooklyn today of sexually abusing a young girl in his care from the time she was just 12 years old.

Jurors found Satmar Hasidic leader Nechemya Weberman guilty on all 59 counts against him, including the top charge of prolonged sexual conduct against a child. 

Weberman, who was immediately cuffed after the verdict, faces up to 25 years behind bars on the top count alone. 

Other counts included sexual abuse and child endangerment.

Weberman sat stoically as the guilty verdicts were read out loud.

He was taken into custody, and his defense lawyer didn’t even bother asking for bail pending sentencing.

The now-18-year-old accuser said she was forced by her parents and school to attend counseling sessions with Weberman because she did not conform to the strict rules of dress and behavior of the Satmar Hasidic sect of Judaism. 

Weberman, 54, was not a licensed counselor but he was still a long-time respected figure in Brooklyn’s insular Hasidic community.

The teen bravely withstood bullying from Weberman supporters who snapped her picture in court — later posted online — and glares from the defendant himself to take the stand against the revered Satmar leader.

She told jurors she hid the years of abuse so she wouldn’t be banished by her parents and the rest of the insular Brooklyn community.

“Satmar would have kicked me out, and if Satmar kicks you out, nobody accepts you,” she told a rapt jury — providing a rare glimpse into the secret culture of the ultra-Orthodox Hasidim. “No one in Williamsburg would accept me.”

Weberman began abusing her during counseling sessions when she was just 12. 

“I thought they would never believe me, since he was supposedly a god in Williamsburg,” she testified.

When asked her status in her community at the time, 2007 to 2010, the teen replied, “Nothing. Just someone sitting there.”

When asked her status at the yeshiva, she said, “A piece of dirt.”

The teen said she feared Weberman because of his role in a powerful group that demands Jews in the community follow strict religious rules and dress codes enforced by Satmar thugs.

She cried for the first time during the trial when she graphically recounted the things Weberman made her do.

In one particularly chilling story, the teen recounted how Weberman told her how he had watched her playing as a child.

“He said he used to watch, and he said he always had a feeling I was going to go to him and he couldn’t wait,” she recalled.

Much of the teen’s testimony spoke to the powerless role she held in Hasidic Brooklyn.

She also testified that after she finally reported Weberman to police in 2010, she wrote a letter to the school saying she was “the girl they put through hell for three years” and, “They should do better for girls who wanted to speak up in the future.”

The teen said she was sent to Weberman for counseling after she talked to a boy and got into trouble at school for not following strict dress codes.

Because the Satmar sect provides no sex education for women until shortly before they marry, she said she didn’t understand what Weberman was doing at the time.

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Abuse Verdict Topples a Hasidic Wall of Secrecy  
By Sharon Otterman
New York Times - December 10, 2012

Sexual abuse in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has long been hidden. Victims who came forward were intimidated into silence; their families were shunned; cases were dropped for a lack of cooperation.  

But on Monday, a State Supreme Court jury in Brooklyn delivered a stunning victory to prosecutors and victims’ advocates, convicting a 54-year-old unlicensed therapist who is a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg of repeatedly sexually abusing a young girl who had been sent to him for help. 

“The veil of secrecy has been lifted,” said Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney. “The wall that has existed in parts of these communities has now been broken through. And as far as I’m concerned, it is very clear to me that it is only going to get better for people who are victimized in these various communities.” 

The case against the therapist, Nechemya Weberman, was a significant milestone for Mr. Hynes, whose office has been criticized for not acting aggressively enough against sexual abusers in the borough’s large and politically connected ultra-Orthodox community. 

The verdict represented the first time Mr. Hynes’ office has won a conviction of a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg for child sexual abuse. 

The case also offered a glimpse of the Satmar community’s shadowy efforts to enforce rigid codes of behavior — particularly for young girls — by allowing so-called modesty committees to intimidate girls for wearing revealing clothing or using cellphones, and requiring parents to send children judged to be breaking rules to religious counselors, many of whom are not licensed and charge high fees. 

The trial of Mr. Weberman, which began on Nov. 26, was a difficult one because there was no physical evidence; the trial hinged on the credibility of Mr. Weberman, who is well connected and powerful in his community, and that of a young woman who had been shunned for being a rebellious teen. The girl said Mr. Weberman had abused her for three years, starting when she was 12, groping her and forcing her to perform oral sex. He denied he had ever touched her. 

The jury believed the young woman and convicted Mr. Weberman of all 59 counts against him. Justice John G. Ingram scheduled a sentencing on Jan. 9; the most serious charge carries a maximum sentence of 25 years, but depending on how the sentence is structured, Mr. Weberman could spend even longer in prison. 

Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology at Queens College of the City University of New York who studies the Hasidic community, called the verdict “remarkable.” 

“Here was a guy protected by the community, supported by the community, and the case against him was from a young girl,” Professor Heilman said. Among the things it demonstrates, he said, is that “the district attorney should have started this kind of thing sooner.” 

The verdict against Mr. Weberman was a deeply emotional moment for the young woman, who is now 18, and her family, according to her mother, who spoke in a telephone interview several hours after the verdict.

“I cried and cried, and couldn’t stop crying,” said the woman, whose name is being withheld by The New York Times to shield the identity of her daughter. “I couldn’t stop crying that justice came out.”

Mr. Weberman did not show emotion as the word “guilty” was read out, 59 times, in the 20th floor courtroom. He looked briefly at members of his family, who held on to each other as the verdict was read, and then was led into custody. 

One of Mr. Weberman’s lawyers, George Farkas, said he would appeal. 

“We firmly believe that this jury got an unfairly sanitized version of the facts, and as a result the truth did not come out,” he said. “The struggle to clear an innocent man will continue in full force.” 

Prosecutors told reporters after the verdict that other women had come forward to assert that they had been abused by Mr. Weberman, including one who had come forward during the trial. Mr. Hynes said those women were unwilling or unable to testify, leaving his office with just one prosecutable case.

Mr. Hynes said he was hopeful that the victim’s “great courage” in testifying would encourage other women who have been abused, particularly in ultra-Orthodox communities, to come forward. 

Prosecution of sexual abuse allegations in the ultra-Orthodox community has been hampered in the past by the intimidation of witnesses. In this case, Mr. Hynes’s office brought charges against four men for allegedly trying to interfere with the case, through bribery and threats. Then, during the trial, four other men were charged with criminal contempt in the second degree for taking cellphone pictures of the victim, in violation of court rules. And although supporters of accused abusers often dominated the galleries at previous trials of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men, on many days at this trial, supporters of the accuser and advocates for abuse victims were in the majority. 

Rabbi Yosef Blau, a victims’ advocate and the spiritual supervisor of Yeshiva University, said he hoped that the Satmar community would now be forced to change how it dealt with troubled young people, who, like this young victim, had been sent to counselors without training or accountability, instead of licensed professionals. 

“It’s a system which allowed this abuse to take place,” he said. “It involves no scrutiny, no controls, and is a terrible way of dealing with children who have issues, whatever those issues might be.” 

But Pearl Engleman of Williamsburg, who became a victims’ advocate after her son said that he had been molested in the Satmar school system, said it would take more than this case to transform her community. Hundreds turned up for a fund-raiser in Mr. Weberman’s support this year, and even with a guilty verdict, she said, she does not expect many to change their minds. 

“There are people who are still rooting for him,” she said. “They just can’t wrap their heads around a Jew sitting in jail for that much time.”

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Rabbinical Council of America on Guilty Verdict of Orthodox Child Molester

December 11, 2012


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), the world’s largest organization of Orthodox rabbis, is encouraged by the process that led to the conviction of Nechemyah Weberman, an Orthodox Jew who acted as an unlicensed counselor and was today found guilty for the sexual molestation of an adolescent girl.   For many years the RCA has condemned the efforts of many parts of the Jewish community to cover up or ignore allegations of abuse, viewing these efforts as against Jewish law, illegal, and irresponsible to the welfare of victims and the greater community. The RCA strongly advocates, as a matter of Jewish law, the reporting of reasonable suspicions of child abuse to the civil authorities and full cooperation with the criminal justice system. The RCA decries any invocation of Jewish law or communal interests as tools in silencing victims or witnesses from reporting abuse or from receiving therapeutic and communal support, and strongly condemns those members of the Jewish community who use such tactics.

In light of the issues raised in this trial the RCA commits itself to increasing the training of its members who serve in all areas of the rabbinate, including pulpits, education, chaplaincy, and communal service, to know how to recognize, prevent, and respond appropriately to issues of child abuse.  In addition, the RCA will help its members develop policies regarding prevention and response to issues of child abuse in their individual congregations and schools, as well as in their larger communities, and, where nonexistent, to support the creation of response teams that include mental health practitioners, law-enforcement personnel, and specially trained rabbis to respond to allegations of abuse and molestation.

Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, president of the RCA, stated, “Weberman’s conviction is validation of our commitment to work with law enforcement to protect the innocent victims of our community and to hold their perpetrators accountable.”   Rabbi Mark Dratch, Executive Vice President of the RCA and founder of JSafe: The Jewish Institute Supporting an Abuse Free Environment, added, “We, like other religious communities, have come a long way in recent years in recognizing and addressing issues of child abuse in our communities. We increasingly understand that our religious texts, traditions, and values must serve as resources of strength and support for members of our faith communities, not as roadblocks to their safety and security.”

Contact:
Mark Dratch
212-807-9000


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Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg assaulted after Nechemya Weberman’s conviction

By Vicki Polin
Examiner - December 11, 2012

Long time chasidic activist Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg was physically assaulted earlier today by a relative of convicted sex offender Baruch Lebovits, who’s conviction was overturned back in April. 

According to a reliable source, Rabbi Rosenberg is currently being treated at a hospital emergency room in Brooklyn, after Lebovits’s relative allegedly threw bleach in Rosenberg’s face. Several high ranking chasidic leaders are blaming Rabbi Rosenberg for numerous arrests and convictions of sexual predators living within the Satmar community, including the conviction of Nechemya Weberman earlier this week. Weberman was an unlicensed counselor who sexually assaulted a teenage girl under his care.

This was not the first time that Rabbi Rosenberg was assaulted. Back in 2008 he was stopped on the street several times at knife point while being warned to shut down his hotline in which he provides information in Yiddish regarding how to protect children from sexual predators. It was around this same time he was shot in the head after not obeying the warnings



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Justice in Williamsburg  
New York Times - December 11, 2012

The sexual abuse conviction in a State Supreme Court in Brooklyn of a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community sends a strong and overdue message to Williamsburg’s tightly knit ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, which has shielded such abusers from legal scrutiny. 

In a case brought by Charles Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, the court convicted Nechemya Weberman, a 54-year-old unlicensed therapist, of repeatedly sexually abusing a young girl who had been sent to him for help. Mr. Hynes said the verdict had lifted the “veil of secrecy” and had served notice that henceforth the prospects for justice are “only going to get better for people who are victimized in these various communities.” 

Prosecutors have long had trouble finding witnesses in the community because speaking out, especially to non-Jewish legal authorities, could bring retaliation. In this particular case, Mr. Hynes charged four men with allegedly trying to interfere with bribery and threats. Four others face criminal contempt of court charges for taking pictures in the courtroom in an apparent attempt to intimidate the victim. On Tuesday, Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg, an advocate for child sex abuse victims, was taken to a hospital after what appeared to be bleach was thrown in his face as he walked down the street in Williamsburg. 

The Weberman case is Mr. Hynes’s first conviction involving sexual abuse by a prominent member of Williamsburg’s Satmar community. He and his prosecutors owe much of that success to the bravery of the victim, who was 12 when she was sent to Mr. Weberman for what school officials considered rebelliousness. Now 18, she testified that she was forced to endure the abuse for three years. Mr. Weberman denied her charges, and his lawyer said he plans to appeal. 

After receiving some criticism for not aggressively pursuing such crimes in the politically active ultra-Orthodox community, Mr. Hynes’s office has stepped up prosecution of abusers. Groups supporting the rights of victims have also been winning ground: a religious court for another Jewish community ruled last year that in cases of child abuse, “one is forbidden to remain silent” and must report the charge to civil authorities. The Satmar community should do the same. No religious institution has the right to shield its child abusers from civil prosecution.

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Hasidic Sex Abuse Victims Advocate Hit With Bleach: Nuchem Rosenberg Hailed the Conviction of Nechemya Weberman
JTA - December 12, 2012

A Hasidic rabbi who advocates for victims of sexual abuse in the ultra-Orthodox community was injured when a chemical was thrown in his face.

Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg on Tuesday was walking down the street in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, where he lives, when a man approached him from behind, tapped him on his shoulder and then threw a chemical believed to be bleach in his face, according to reports.

Rosenberg, 62, was treated for burns on his face, around his eyes and in his left eye. He is expected to make a full recovery.

“He taps on my shoulder, he says ‘whoops’ and throws it in my face,” Rosenberg told the New York Daily News.

Rosenberg identified the attacker as the son of an accused child sex abuser. He blamed the attack on unrest in the Satmar community over the conviction of Nechemya Weberman on sex charges a day earlier.

“Because of the Weberman case, everything is upside down,” he told the News. “Everybody is crazy.”

The rabbi runs a website and blog for sex-abuse victims, as well as a telephone hot line.

He told New York media that he believes the attack was in retaliation for his support and assistance of the now 18-year-old female victim of Satmar Hasidic leader Weberman, who was convicted on Monday of 59 counts of sexual abuse of the woman when she was between the ages of 12 and 15 and went to him for counseling.

Police have not yet caught the attacker, though they reportedly have identified a suspect.
On Monday, Rosenberg accused another rabbi of abusing young boys in a blog post on his website, according to the New York Post.

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Confronting Abuse
Foward - December 14, 2012

This has been the year when the historically opaque veil of secrecy about child sexual abuse has been lifted. Thanks to courageous reporting by our Paul Berger and others in the Jewish and mainstream media, the belated activity of law enforcement officials and, most importantly, the willingness of victims to come forward, Jewish institutions and entire communities are finally confronting the abuse by some and the cover-up by many.

Sadly, there are no geographic boundaries to this story. In February, Berger reported on how a child sexual abuse scandal in Australia was spilling over onto America’s shores. Since then, one convicted sex offender has been extradicted from the United States to Australia.

And as Berger reports in this week’s Forward, two former staff members of Yeshiva University High School for Boys, accused by former students of inappropriate sexual behavior, were allowed to leave without investigation and went on to build lives and careers in Israel.

This is why the denial of such crimes, or the unwillingness on the part of authorities to deal with serious allegations, is so insidious. The cover-up is never as hurtful or damaging as the act itself — it’s rare to find anyone who was victimized as a youngster who is able to forget the pain and humiliation. But when those in authority deny or dismiss such claims, it only opens up the possibility that another person will be hurt. That may sound obvious, but it is routinely ignored.

Or at least has been routinely ignored. Finally, in the Jewish community and beyond, there is a growing recognition that abuse must be confronted, that there cannot be a moral statute of limitations that absolves those in authority of the duty to investigate. Finally, the first, understandable impulse to protect the alleged abuser is being weighed against the imperative to listen to the alleged victim.

Because, while the heinous acts may be sexual in nature, this is really about the abuse of power — the power of a teacher, a priest, a principal or a coach to impose his twisted will on those least able to resist. Occasionally, a brave youngster will be able to come forward to testify, as the young Satmar Hasidic woman did in the trial that recently convicted Nechamya Weberman, an unlicensed therapist, of repeated counts of sexual abuse. But it is unfair and unrealistic to expect violated youngsters to challenge authority voluntarily, without the explicit, genuine support of those in power.

While the Forward’s reporting has focused on abuses within the broad Orthodox community, surely those Jews are no more prone to commit abuse than any other people. The difference is the effective way in which communal norms against challenging authority in that community are enforced, at times with law enforcement apparently turning a blind eye. The prosecution and conviction of Weberman by the Brooklyn district attorney, whose office has been rightly criticized for its tepid pursual of such crimes, signals a new willingness to hold members of the powerful Satmar community to the same standards as other citizens. That is to be applauded.

In his statement to the Forward regarding allegations of abuse by Y.U. high school staff, President Richard Joel said that such behaviors “have no place here, in our community, or anywhere at all.” Let this be the year those words are backed up by true action.

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Was Nechemya Weberman on Trial — or Satmars?
Brooklyn Prosecutors Took Aim at Hasidic Group's Way of Life
By Batya Ungar-Sargon 
Forward - December 17, 2012

Community Pressure: Posters in Brooklyn denounce the accuser of Nechemya Weberman. In their zeal to convict Weberman, did Brooklyn prosecutors tar the entire Satmar community?

On December 10, Nechemya Weberman, an unlicensed youth and marriage counselor in the Satmar community of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg, was convicted of 59 counts of sexual misconduct against a minor.

As in any trial, the judge reminded the jurors that the defendant’s guilt must be proved “beyond reasonable doubt.” But with Weberman now facing a possible prison sentence of 25 years or more, it is worth asking what exactly has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, and whether it was Weberman’s community as much as his actions — deplorable if true — being judged in the docket with him.

The Brooklyn district attorney’s case hinged exclusively on the credibility of the team’s single witness — the young woman accusing Weberman of sexually abusing her during each of their counseling sessions, which often took place multiple times a week, beginning when she was 12 and ending when she was 15. Though there have been reports of other victims, both from religious support groups for victims as well as from the DA, none have come forward. Weberman has flatly denied the allegations. When asked if he had ever touched his accuser inappropriately, he said, “Never, ever.” Absent DNA evidence, the case is a he said, she said. The verdict hung ultimately on whose testimony the jury found more credible.

Weberman’s defense team questioned the accuser’s credibility by arguing that she had two very strong motives for wanting to harm Weberman. First, the accuser’s sister owed the defendant $35,000, the first $10,000 of which was due six days before she went to the police to report Weberman. And second, Weberman had assisted the accuser’s father in taping her having sex with her 18-year-old boyfriend when she was 15, leading to the boyfriend’s arrest. On the stand, Weberman’s accuser denied that she knew of his involvement in the arrest, stating that she learned of it only this past summer, though Weberman’s name was explicitly stated as an accomplice during her original complaint to the New York City Police Department, two years ago.

The defense team also pointed to discrepancies noted when comparing the accuser’s testimony in court with her conversation with the arresting detective, to whom she made the original complaint. Furthermore, the top two counts for which Weberman was standing trial were on dates of alleged abuse that didn’t match the victim’s statement to the NYPD. For these reasons, Weberman’s attorney argued, none of the evidence against his client is provable beyond reasonable doubt, and the case should be dismissed.

On the other side of the aisle, the DA’s office painted Weberman as a sexual predator with a harem of young girls to satisfy his every sexual need. But their main attempts to discredit him came not from testimonies of other victims, of which there were none, but rather from his shady business dealings and his position in the male-dominated Satmar world. They said he used a credit card belonging to his charity organization to pay tuition for one of his children, and later used the same credit card to purchase lingerie (his wife maintains that the charge was hers; she purchased clothing for a young woman who was the recipient of Weberman’s charity). They mentioned the fact that Weberman allows people to call him “Rebbe” despite not being ordained. They mentioned the fact that he charged a whopping $150 a session for “counseling” despite being unlicensed.

But beyond the connotations and stereotypes suggested by this evidence and certainly reiterated in the media, the DA’s case focused on the rules of the Satmar world; the stringency of the dress code; the suppression of free thought; the laws of yihud, or seclusion, governing women and men’s conduct; the regime of terror that the Va’ad Hatznius, the modesty council, allegedly metes out upon young women; the beit din, or private courts, and most of all, the injunction to maintain an absolute separation of the sexes. An expert was brought in to go over the details of this community’s lifestyle, all of which were portrayed as draconian, misogynistic and enabling of sexual abuse. The clear implication was that the accuser was victimized not only by Weberman, but also by his form of religion.

In this context, the accuser was portrayed as a hero in her attempts to escape from this repressive and alienating environment. Her process toward secularization was represented as emancipation from the world of the defendent toward the world of the jurors. She stood up for herself in school — questioning God and the necessity of modesty laws — becoming an outcast; now she stands up to the accused, who is backed by the Satmar establishment “like a god in Williamsburg,” the accuser said.

But one of the main signs of this secularization was hidden from the jury. The judge didn’t allow the tape showing the accuser having sex with her older boyfriend to be admitted into evidence — an expected but monumental decision, as it turns out. One alternate juror who I spoke with while observing the trial, a Brooklyn resident in his mid-30s, said he was “split down the middle” as to whether he would have convicted. The alternate juror said that seeing a sex tape would definitely have made him question the credibility of the witness. While it would be deeply problematic for a young woman’s testimony to be discounted simply on the grounds of her not being a virgin, or even on the grounds that she might be the only victim, it would be equally problematic for a man to be accused of a crime he might not have committed because a jury had been alienated by his religious choices.

Based on the evidence actually presented in court, only the accuser and accused, and not the jury, can be said to know what happened between them during those sessions, beyond reasonable doubt. The testimonies of those who have heretofore refused to come forward would be required to tip the scales. While the value of using reasonable doubt as a standard for judging criminal acts, especially rape, may be debated, as might the Satmar community’s business dealings and handling of teenage behavior, Weberman was not on trial for his community or his business dealings, though at times this seemed like the DA’s central and more damning argument against him.

Batya Ungar-Sargon is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer who teaches at CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice

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Consider This: No more room under the carpet  
By Naomi Ragen
Jerusalem Post - December 27, 2012

While Weberman is behind bars, many are still unnamed and continue to destroy the souls of young boys and girls because of a conspiracy of silence surrounding rabbinical sexual misconduct.

The case was horrific. A 17-year-old girl from the Satmar community in Williamsburg testified that she was forced by her school to attend “counseling sessions” from age 12 to 15 because she wore stockings that were too thin and asked too many questions about God. Instead of religious mentoring, three times a week she found herself behind a thrice-locked door with a bed, face to face with a fiftyish, overweight, unlicensed father of 10 who forced her to watch pornographic movies and perform sexual acts.

The defendant, Nechemya Weberman, had risen from the humble post of driver for the Satmar Rebbe to the go-to expert to whom rebellious young girls were forcibly sent. According the victim’s mother, Weberman charged her $150 an hour, and demanded thousands of dollars up front.

At one point, when he insisted on taking her young daughter on a 12-hour, unchaperoned excursion upstate, the victim’s mother finally protested. His response? An angry demand for a written apology, and a threat to stop the sessions, which would have resulted in the girl’s expulsion from school.

“What could I do? I wrote it... [Now] I feel like I want to kill myself. How could I have been so blind?” she said.

Satmar in America has rallied around Weberman, holding a fund-raiser for his legal defense, and allegedly dispatching members of the community to alternately bribe and harass the victim and her family. These efforts supposedly included a half a million dollars in exchange for the girl and her new husband leaving the country, throwing her nieces out of school, and revoking her husband’s restaurant hechsher (kosher certificate), putting him out of business.


With incredible bravery and tenacity, the victim refused to give up, going on to endure a grueling 15-hour, three-day cross-examination by Weberman’s high-powered legal firm, something prosecutors said they had never, ever seen done to any victim of sexual assault.

Weberman supporters say he was convicted without any DNA evidence, i.e. no Monica Lewinsky blue dress. It was his word against hers.

Obviously, however, the jury believed her, convicting him on all 59 counts, including sustained sex abuse of a child and endangering the welfare of a child. He faces a maximum of 117 years in prison.

SADLY, WEBERMAN’s is not an isolated case. People like him are all over the religious world at every level, possessing the perfect opportunity to exploit their lofty, respected status as spiritual leaders to put themselves beyond suspicion, assured that victims will be too intimidated to come forward.

What is remarkable about the Weberman case is that the victim and her family pursued the case and that the victim received support from the religious community, mostly outside of Satmar, who held public protests against those besmirching her name.

These included Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum himself, one of two Satmar rebbes, who was widely quoted as saying to an overflow crowd of men on a Saturday night: “I was in Williamsburg this Shabbat and saw an entire community saddened by what is going on. It’s a dreadful situation.... A Jewish daughter has descended so low, terrible. Is our sister to be like a whore? ...When they go down, they go down to the ground.”

I was also encouraged by the statement issued about the case by the Rabbinical Council of America, which stated that the RCA “decries any invocation of Jewish law or communal interests as tools in silencing victims or witnesses from reporting abuse or from receiving therapeutic and community support and strongly condemns those members of the Jewish community who use such tactics.”

But while Weberman is behind bars, many are still unnamed and continue to destroy the souls of young boys and girls because of a conspiracy of silence surrounding rabbinical sexual misconduct even in such respected modern Orthodox institutions as Yeshiva University.

The Forward recently published a shocking exposé describing a decades-long cover-up by the YU administration of rabbinical misconduct by two rabbis (both of them now living and working in Israel). Since the article was published, 11 more victims have come forward.

Yeshiva University President Richard M. Joel, who was not part of YU when the alleged abuse took place, has been vociferous in his condemnation of such a cover-up: “The actions described represent heinous and inexcusable acts that are antithetical both to Torah values and to everything that Yeshiva University stands for. They have no place here – or anywhere at all.”

The statement goes on to publish a hotline for victims, as well as his own personal phone and email contact information. I find that admirable. But the fact remains that in the past YU ignored victims’ claims and allowed the perpetrators to get off.

The trial of deeply respected rabbinical leader Mordechai Elon on sexual abuse allegations leaves many of us, myself included, conflicted. While in our hearts we would like to see Rav Elon – once one of the most beloved and respected teachers and leaders of modern Orthodoxy in Israel – completely exonerated, on the other hand, his victory would discredit the important and groundbreaking Takana panel set up to hear charges of abuse from victims of sexual assault and which acted in good faith to protect the victims by banning Elon from teaching.

Such an outcome would be a tragedy that would set back the progress made in giving victims a voice, and the community a responsibility to act quickly and resolutely to prevent such tragedies in the future.

WHAT IS undeniably a good thing over which we may all rejoice is that the entire topic of rabbinical sexual abuse has come out of the closet, much the way similar abuses by priests is no longer a dirty little secret.

I hope and pray that Weberman will sit behind bars for many, many years and that the appeal process and some highly-paid legal team (his supporters are allegedly trying to raise a million-dollar defense fund and hire Alan Dershowitz) will not get him off. I hope his punishment will serve as an encouragement for more victims to come forward, and as a deterrent to those in the religious world who have motive, opportunity and the feeling that their pious act and high-up friends will shield them from the law if they choose to unleash their sexual desires, thereby destroying the lives and souls of the young people in their care.

I hope it will empower really pious religious leaders to strongly and publicly support victims, and convince parents and educators to listen, and act. Most of all, I hope it will help to eradicate the wall of silence that has the religious world bending to intimidation from within and from without about sexual predators in its midst.

As the brave victim of Nechemya Weberman who brought down Satmar’s veil of secrecy was quoted as saying: “I am doing this so that no other young person will suffer what I did.”

God willing, may that be true.

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Nechemya Weberman's Unique Band of Relatives

Abuser's Cousins Include Bob Dylan-Hunting 'Garbologist'

By Jon Kalish, Edited By Larry Cohler-Esses

Forward - December 28, 2012

You think your family has issues? Consider the Weberman clan.

Off-Beat Family: Nechemya Weberman’s extended family include this anti-Zionist who attended a conference in Iran.

Nechemya Weberman was convicted December 10 for child sexual abuse in a landmark case that underlined the massive support he enjoyed in the Satmar Hasidic community. But it turns out that he is just one high-profile member of a sprawling brood, whose diverse activities have made them one of that community’s more notable families.

Besides the newly minted felon, the extended Weberman family includes an anti-Zionist who broke bread with Holocaust deniers in Tehran six years ago; an immigration attorney who got the Satmar rebbe into America after World War II, and a Yippie “garbologist,” famous for sorting through the trash of Bob Dylan, among other things.

A.J. Weberman, who once made headlines by picking through Bob Dylan’s trash,  has started a website attacking his cousin, Nechemya Weberman, and the leaders of Satmar Hasidism.

From the Satmars’ perspective, the singular bad apple in the barrel may be neither the anti-Zionist nor the convicted child abuser. It is the garbologist, Alan Jules Weberman, a secular left-wing activist better known as A.J. Weberman, who has recently put up a website to trash his Hasidic relatives and the entire Satmar community.

Long before he took on his Hasidic relatives, A.J. Weberman’s associations with trashing were of a different nature. He dove into Dylan’s garbage during the course of a years-long obsessive pursuit of the composer and singer in the early 1970s. The garbage diving was just part of his fanatic and often eccentric research into Dylan’s life and the supposed hidden messages in his lyrics. Rolling Stone magazine referred to Weberman in June 2007 as “the king of all Dylan nuts.”

And that is but one of his claims to fame. A.J. Weberman, who is Nechemya Weberman’s second cousin, was also an early member of the Youth International Party, a group of left-wing activists whose founders included prominent 1960s agitators Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. Paradoxically, he is also a close associate of Jewish Defense Organization founder Mordechai Levy, whose fringe group is a spin-off of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane’s militant right-wing Jewish Defense League.

Just before the verdict came down in the explosive two-week trial of Nechemya Weberman, A.J. Weberman purchased the Internet domain name nechemyaweberman.com and put up a website that bashes the convicted child abuser and the Satmar Hasidim as a group in graphic terms.

Nechemya Weberman, 54, an unlicensed “therapist” was convicted on 59 counts of sexually abusing a young female Satmar client starting when she was 12. He faces up to 117 years in prison at his sentencing hearing, scheduled for January 9.

Mere incarceration is insufficient as far as A.J. Weberman is concerned. The convicted sex abuser “should be suspended by his testicles,” he writes on the website. Visitors to nechemyaweberman.com are treated to an image of Nechemya Weberman’s face Photoshopped onto a pig’s body.

Other digital media on the website include a TV news report on a Satmar-supported fundraiser for Nechemya Weberman’s defense fund, held last May; an embedded video of District Attorney Charles Hynes’s press conference following the conviction, and a link to an MP3 file of a Yiddish speech given by the Satmar leader Aaron Teitelbaum in which he appears to disparage the young victim as a “zona,” or whore.

The website, like other online efforts of A.J. Weberman, has an amateur quality to it. It nevertheless provides a peek into the history of the Weberman family in America.

According to nechemyaweberman.com, the family patriarch, Moshe Weberman, came to the United States in 1880 and ran a delicatessen on Rivington Street, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. His son, Herman — A.J. Weberman’s grandfather — was a furrier and fought in the Spanish American War. Another son, Ben Zion or Benjamin Weberman, was an immigration attorney. He is credited with getting Satmar Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum into the United States from Mandatory Palestine after World War II. Teitelbaum traveled there after having escaped Hungary during the Holocaust. Benjamin Weberman is the grandfather of Nechemya Weberman.

Another grandson of Benjamin Weberman is William Mordechai Weberman, a member of a delegation of anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox Jews that attended a 2006 Holocaust denial conference in Tehran. There they met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The six delegation members — all affiliated with the anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta— told their fellow attendees, including former American Nazi and Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, that the Holocaust was a historical reality. But speaking on their behalf, Neturei Karta activist Aharon Cohen told the audience that “in no way can it be used as a justification for perpetrating unjust acts against the Palestinians.”

A native of Brooklyn, A.J. Weberman immigrated to Israel in 1959 and has dual American-Israeli citizenship.

His personal confrontations with Dylan, at least one of them physical, are legendary. In January 1971, A.J. Weberman reached Dylan on the telephone and, in two separate conversations, conducted a probingly confrontational interview. The phone conversations were later released as a Broadside/Folkways LP entitled “Bob Dylan vs. A.J. Weberman.” But Columbia Records, to which Dylan was signed, used its legal muscle to get the record pulled from the shelves.

Weberman’s literary analysis of Dylan’s lyrics, which he refers to as Dylanology, inspired his “Dylan to English Dictionary.” He also wrote a book titled “My Life in Garbology.”

On his anti-Satmar website, A.J. Weberman includes an embedded video of William Mordechai Weberman being interviewed by a television crew at a May 2011 anti-Zionist demonstration.
Reached by phone at his home in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, William Mordechai Weberman confirmed that he is, indeed, a member of Neturei Karta and was a participant in the group’s 2006 trip to Iran.

William Mordechai Weberman said that Nechemya Weberman occasionally attended services at his synagogue, which is known as the Malachim Shul. Asked if he knew A.J. Weberman, William Mordechai Weberman replied that he vaguely knew of his research into a famous figure.

“I heard of him, I’d say, like 30 years ago already. With someone named Dylan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the guy.”

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Orthodox Jews Face a Moment of Reckoning: A Plea To Deal Directly With the Problem of Child Abuse
By Ezra Friedlander
Forward - December 30, 2012

After the verdict in the infamous Nechemya Weberman trial was announced, the Satmar community found itself reeling. This story of an unlicensed therapist who for years was sexually abusing a young girl multiple times a week has inflamed our passions to unprecedented levels, and rightfully so. But now that the dust has settled somewhat, it’s time for some personal introspection.

This was brought home to me, a Hasidic Jew who lives in Borough Park, just as the trial ended when I met someone who confided that his daughter’s best friend was also abused by this very same perpetrator. Stunned, I asked him if anyone else knows about this. “No,” he answered. “And that’s how it should remain.”

 Who knows how many other young children are living among us, playing, learning, studying, sitting at the Sabbath table, and yet hiding a deep, dark and terrifying secret in their hearts? Who knows how many shattered lives walk among us? Those who come forward are indisputably courageous and bold. But instead of being embraced by our community as heroes, they are shunned and terrorized. The victims are being treated as though they were at fault. Why?

We need to have an honest conversation. The Weberman trial, for all practical purposes, has brought to light a painful issue with which our community is reluctant to deal. For many of us, it’s just too difficult to digest the truth about this case. As a parent of two young children, one of whom is now in kindergarten, I am personally horrified. I simply cannot fathom how vulnerable my child, or anyone’s child, can be and how devastating it would be if any harm would befall him.

To be fair, our community has so much to be proud of. We are second to none in every category of chesed — kindness — and caring. Our record of achievement in terms of aiding the poor, the ill, the suffering and the lonely is outstanding. We were the envy of the rest of society when our people joined forces en masse to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy. We showed compassion and caring to Jew and non-Jew alike. So why is it that in the area of protecting our children from predators, we have failed so miserably?

Perhaps this is why this case baffles me so.

We have built an infrastructure that successfully weeds out any negative elements that could harm our children, our families and our community. We do everything possible to shelter our young ones from foreign influences. Yet in this one area, we have chosen to look the other way and to neglect our communal responsibility. Instead, we have preferred to remain passive in the face of this obvious aggression, even though it severely affects the sanctity of our precious children. It just doesn’t make sense.

There are those among us who choose to defend the accused simply because their natural inclination cannot accept the fact that these things have happened. There are those who are simply too mortified to accept that this epidemic exists. I understand their feelings; I, too, am horrified beyond words.

The world is watching us, make no mistake about it. As someone who is engaged in the world of public relations and public opinion, I am sensing that the collateral damage of this trial has substantially affected the Orthodox Jewish community. And believe me when I tell you — public opinion matters.

Even Moses understood this. When Hashem chose him to advocate on behalf of klal yisroel, all of Israel, before Pharaoh, his response was that he was ”aral sefosayim” — meaning that he had a speech impediment. Moses recognized the significance of advocating for the Jewish people and knew that their case must be presented carefully and with clarity. Even in biblical times, public opinion mattered.

In modern-day warfare, battles are raged, lives are lost and territories are conquered. But the barometer of victory and defeat is not necessarily measured by the number of casualties or the land gained; it is measured more by the indiscriminate judgment of world opinion. The winner is the one who has gathered more positive comments on websites and social media and has conquered people’s hearts.

Be that as it may, the news media must also bear some responsibility for fanning the flames during the current fiasco. Quick to paint our entire community with a broad brush of defamation, they eagerly pounce on every story of an Orthodox Jew who is being investigated for any reason. The general tendency is to publish a large photo that plainly identifies the individual as a member of our community, coupled with an insulting headline. More often than not, they randomly choose to classify him as a “rabbi” or “community leader.”

The repercussions to our community are very real. I am sensing a distancing from elected officials and others — people who have been sympathetic to our needs in the past. There is a sense among them that no one at the top is addressing this crisis satisfactorily. People have called me aside and asked me off the record why our leaders aren’t dealing with this issue. They can’t understand how circumstances could have allowed a perpetrator to spend so many unsupervised hours alone with his victim. “Is that allowed?” they ask me. “Isn’t this against your rules?”

I fear that they are correct.

I am calling for a Marshall Plan, a total overhaul of the system similar to the one that re-created the infrastructure of the European continent after World War II. It is time for us to rebuild our own infrastructure. It is time to gather together all yeshivas and educational institutions to implement a new series of policies and procedures that can deal with these issues in a practical yet effective manner. Simple changes like windows in every classroom, audio and video surveillance, and licensed counselors and social workers are just some of the improvements that could be made.

All these changes should be administered under the haskama, a letter of approbation, and supervision of our Torah leaders. Procedures should be put in place that would protect both the victim and the accused in the event that false allegations are ever presented. And precisely those among us who are convinced that Weberman is innocent should be paving the way in implementing these changes. If this is not a wake-up call for our community, then what is? It will be costly, for sure. But it can be done. We have the resources to build magnificent buildings for our communal institutions. What good are they if we cannot protect our children from what may be happening in these very same buildings?

It is ironic that precisely our very own community, known for our trailblazing efforts to protect our children, is coming under fire for our meek response to this devastating crisis. We have managed to raise families largely unaware of the vulgarity of the world at large and the threats to our cherished traditions. Yet we can’t seem to take the necessary steps to safeguard our children from the villains in our very own midst.

I sincerely hope that recent events will force us to make the necessary changes. I pray that the outcry will finally come forth. But so far, the silence is deafening.

Ezra Friedlander is CEO of The Friedlander Group, a public affairs and government relations company based in New York City and in Washington.

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Witness Statement

 
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Satmar Hasidic counselor Nechemya Weberman gets 103 years for sexually abusing teen girl
By Oren Yaniv and Larry McShane
New York Daily News - January 22, 2013 

A prominent Satmar Hasidic counselor was sentenced to 103 years in prison Tuesday for his repeated sexual abuse of a teen victim, who was left weeping over the loss of her childhood.

An expressionless Nechemya Weberman, 54, said nothing as the stunning jail term was handed down once his victim finished her heart-wrenching statement inside a Brooklyn courtroom.

“I remember how I would look in the mirror,” the victim recounted as her tormentor sat with his eyes closed. “I saw a girl who didn’t want to live in her own skin. A girl whose innocence was shattered at age 12.

“A sad girl who wanted to live a normal life, but instead was being victimized by a 50-year-old man who forced her to perform sickening acts again and again.”

The sentence is a virtual life term for Weberman, who would be 107 years old before coming up for parole.

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes said Weberman’s conviction was only possible with “the courage of a young woman.”

The victim, subjected to repeated sexual assaults between 2007 and 2010, spent four days on the witness stand being grilled about the depraved attacks that left her suicidal.

“It takes years and years to heal,” said the victim, who sat in the front row of the courtroom with her husband. “In some ways, it’s much worse than murder. The abused experience the past over and over again.”

The first incident of abuse came when she was just 12 years old.

Weberman, who served as a counselor for members of the ultra-Orthodox Satmar sect, was convicted last month on 59 counts of abuse for the repeated attacks inside his locked office.

The victim said she was forced to perform oral sex and act out scenes from pornographic movies up to four times a week when she met with Weberman for counseling.

The victim, now 18, went to authorities in February 2011 to detail the abuse. The Daily News reported that Webermman may have violated at least 10 other victims — including married women who came to him for counseling.

Weberman, who did not speak at the sentencing, was sent to Rikers Island without bail after his conviction. He faced a maximum sentence of 117 years behind bars.

His attorney, George Farkas, said Weberman maintains his innocence and questioned the lengthy jail term.

“Retribution has no place in sentencing,” he said.

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Hasidic Therapist Sentenced to 103 Years in Sexual Abuse Case
By Sharon Otterman
New York Times - January 22, 2013

An unlicensed therapist who was a prominent member of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn was sentenced on Tuesday to 103 years in prison for repeatedly sexually abusing a young woman, beginning the attacks when she was 12. 

Nechemya Weberman, 54, a member of the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg, did not react as the judge sentenced him. The victim, now 18, who delivered an impassioned statement asking for the maximum sentence to be imposed, dabbed away tears. 

“The message should go out to all victims of sexual abuse that your cries will be heard and justice will be done,” said State Supreme Court Justice John G. Ingram before imposing the sentence, close to the longest permissible to him by law. He praised the young victim’s “courage and bravery in coming forward.” 

As Mr. Weberman was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, he turned to his wife and gave her a nod and a small smile. 

On Dec. 9, Mr. Weberman was found guilty of 59 counts of sexual abuse, charges that carried a maximum combined sentence of 117 years. He was found guilty of engaging in various sexual acts, including oral sex, fondling and acting out pornographic videos, during therapy sessions that were meant to help the girl become more religious. The abuse lasted three years. 

In her statement, the victim, dressed in a gold shirt and black skirt, said that for years during and after the abuse, she would look in the mirror and see “a girl who didn’t want to live in her own skin.” 

“I would cry until the tears went dry,” she said. But now, she said, she can see someone “who finally stood up and spoke out,” on behalf of both herself and “the other silent victims.” 

“You played around with people as if they were your toys,” she told Mr. Weberman, “without the slightest bit of mercy.” 

Mr. Weberman, who wore his traditional black suit and head covering, did not speak before the sentencing, but his lawyer, George Farkas, said he was “innocent of the crimes charged.” An appeal is planned. 

The case was closely watched as the first high-profile child-sexual-abuse case brought by the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, against a member of the politically powerful Satmar ultra-Orthodox community in his more than two decades in office. This sentence is the longest a Brooklyn court has imposed on a member of the ultra-Orthodox community for child sexual abuse.

Critics have charged Mr. Hynes with not being aggressive enough in going after molesters in the politically well-connected community, but Mr. Hynes has blamed the lack of prosecutions on the intimidation to stay silent that ultra-Orthodox sex-abuse victims and their families often face from their own community leaders. 

Support for Mr. Weberman was strong in powerful circles of the Satmar community after his arrest in 2011, with hundreds turning out for a fund-raiser for his defense. But the courtroom on Tuesday was about equally divided between supporters for Mr. Weberman and his victim. 

Mr. Hynes has said that he believes the case may mark a turning point for ultra-Orthodox sex-abuse victims. In addition to convicting Mr. Weberman, his office also charged seven Hasidic men with bribery and intimidation of Mr. Weberman’s victim, who testified over four days. Prosecutors say they know of more victims who were too afraid to testify. 

“If there is one message to take away from this case, it is that this office will pursue the evil of sexual abuse of a child no matter where it occurs in this county,” Mr. Hynes said in a statement. “The abuse of a child cannot be swept under the rug or dealt with by insular groups believing only they know what is best for their community.” 

The victim, who has since married and enrolled in college, no longer lives in Williamsburg but continues to face harassment and intimidation by some who still support Mr. Weberman, according to the woman’s husband. 

“She definitely feels relieved, and she will be able to sleep better at night,” the husband said on Tuesday. “He definitely won’t be able to hurt anyone else.”

Marc Santora contributed reporting.

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