{"id":183719,"date":"2012-12-10T21:58:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T02:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2012\/12\/10\/conviction-in-satmar-sex-abuse-case\/"},"modified":"2012-12-10T21:58:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-11T02:58:00","slug":"conviction-in-satmar-sex-abuse-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2012\/12\/10\/conviction-in-satmar-sex-abuse-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Conviction in Satmar Sex Abuse Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Notwithstanding a systematic pattern of harassment and coercion by the Satmar Hasidic community, the mother and daughter stood firm, and so-called counsellor Nechemya Weberman was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/12\/11\/nyregion\/hasidic-man-found-guilty-of-sexual-abuse.html\">convicted of sexual abuse over 3 years of a girl<\/a> starting when she was twelve&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">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.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">But on Monday, a State Supreme Court jury in Brooklyn delivered a stunning victory to prosecutors and victims\u2019 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.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cThe veil of secrecy has been lifted,\u201d said Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney. \u201cThe wall that has existed in parts of these communities has now been broken through. And as far as I\u2019m concerned, it is very clear to me that it is only going to get better for people who are victimized in these various communities.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">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\u2019s large and politically connected ultra-Orthodox community.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">The verdict represented the first time Mr. Hynes\u2019 office has won a conviction of a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg for child sexual abuse.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">The case also offered a glimpse of the Satmar community\u2019s shadowy efforts to enforce rigid codes of behavior \u2014 particularly for young girls \u2014 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.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Perhaps even more significant than the Brooklyn DA managing to crack the ultra-orthodox Omert\u00e0 (code of silence) in order to get a conviction, but that he also issued an <a href=\"http:\/\/failedmessiah.typepad.com\/failed_messiahcom\/2012\/12\/brooklyn-da-warns-satmar-dont-hurt-victim-or-her-family-234.html\">informal warning against any further harassment of the victim or her family by the community<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>BTW, the halacha (Jewish law) is clear here:&nbsp; It is required that these allegations be taken to civil courts, because a Beit Din (religious court) has no authority beyond moral persuasion in the US.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Notwithstanding a systematic pattern of harassment and coercion by the Satmar Hasidic community, the mother and daughter stood firm, and so-called counsellor Nechemya Weberman was convicted of sexual abuse over 3 years of a girl starting when she was twelve&#8221; Sexual abuse in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has long been hidden. Victims who came forward &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,969,1051,1021,1075],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-evil","category-hypocrisy","category-religion","category-sex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183719"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}