The verdict, against Nechemya Weberman, 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. And the case offered a rare window into how the Satmar community enforces its sexual values, particularly for young girls, with so-called modesty committees chastising girls for wearing revealing clothing or using cellphones, and parents pressured to pay high fees to religious counselors to treat those girls.
He was convicted on 59 counts.
There’s been a considerable culture of impunity until now, with the police looking the other way for years.
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 several men for allegedly trying to interfere with the case, through bribery and threats. Then, during the trial, three other men were charged for taking cellphone pictures of the victim, in violation of court rules. And, although supporters of accused abusers have dominated the gallery at previous trials involving prominent ultra-Orthodox Jewish men, on many days at this trial, supporters of the accuser and advocates for abuse victims were in the majority.
H/t No Light.
Good.
Let’s hope for more of this.
And did you see the lesson/s learned by the piece of garbage Satmar leaders, including the grand rabbi?
From the official: Send the abused kids to a program in Israel or Europe and hope they return home, you know, reeducated.
From Teitelbaum, the rebbe :
“A Jewish daughter has descended so low,” said Teitelbaum …. “There hasn’t been such a disgusting saga in (the history of religious) Jewry.”
Right conclusion, wrong premise.
Excellent news. There is no other way to correct these problems other than to subject them to the crushing power of secular force.
These people isolate themselves in hierarchical systems because they are following the commands of gods that can kick their asses. They do evil to the weakest among themselves because their culture breeds compliance and provides pathways for those with sick desires to gain positions of authority.
There is no other way to control some of them except force, the force of of secular power that at least halfway gives a shit about the suffering of others and kinda believes in rights and interests.
Some religious communities can be reasoned with, other religious communities will constrain themselves as secularism becomes a bigger part of popular culture, but other communities can be constrained only by the force of law.
And don’t think I am being anti-Semetic because of the particulars of this case. I love it when a Catholic priest goes to jail. I love it when all those creepy preachers on mojoey’s blog go to jail. I would have loved to see Baptist uncle Jimmy go to jail.
For people who believe that moral authority comes from a God who has that authority by kicking our asses, there is no hope of controlling them except by a show of force that makes them fear us more.
a Satmar official told the Daily News that leaders are considering ways to avoid similar accusations by victims.
Not ways to make abuse stop, just ways to keep it out of the public eye.
Ema beat me to it:
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/12/embarrassed-by-weberman-trial-satmar-considers-shipping-rebellious-kids-out-of-the-country-for-treat-234.html
Obviously the satmar have learned from the CIA – where it is called “rendition”.
Link to the article you were quoting?
What’s hilarious is Satmar pretending that sending kids to Israel or Europe to be
sexually abused out of the local court’s jurisdictiongiven therapy is a new thing.They’re all whinging up a bloody storm about “a jury full of goyim convicting him” and how “they made a bad trial, no evidence, just the word of a zonah” (whore).
What the bearded, black-hatted bastard brigade just cannot grasp is that Weberman, with his arrogance and superiority complex on full view, ended up testifying for the prosecution. By slandering the girl, admitting other crimes, and having his star witness lie on the stand, even the Satmar-funded crack legal team couldn’t help.
Ultimately, he nailed his own coffin shut from the inside. Yasher koach to him! (Basically, ‘Thanks/Well done).
Maybe he meant literally as in her
rapisttherapist was on top.Hasidic jews? The way they’re behaving, soon it will be Acidic jews (i.e. throwing acid in the face of girls) and committing “honour killings”. They’re already spitting on and physically assaulting girls for going to school or wearing certain clothes, so it wouldn’t surprise me.
Conviction isn’t enough. Social workers need to take the girls out of that community and interview the girls privately and get them to open up without fear of reprisals. Give them the protection of anonymity so they can report crimes that happened.
The nutball rabbis and other extremists should be deported, not the girls. It wouldn’t surprise me if their idea of “sending girls overseas for re-education” will include FGM.
How come he wasn’t transferred to another ‘parish’? Catholicism is so much more accommodating. You should have switched your religion, Mr. Weberman. The Pope and his cronies have all the “fun” and get away with it as well. Further, they are more fashionably dressed.
Gregory @ 7 – oops, sorry about link! I added it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/nyregion/hasidic-man-found-guilty-of-sexual-abuse.html?_r=0
Tsu Dho Nimh:
Precisely. The emphasis is on protecting people in power from public accusations, not ensuring there’s nothing to make accusations about.