(Photo Credit: DNAinfo/Tuan Nguyen)
BROOKLYN — Four men were arrested Wednesday morning for allegedly offering a $500,000 bribe to a sexually abused teenager to get her to drop charges against a popular Orthodox community counselor who is presently on trial in Brooklyn, DNAinfo.com New York has learned.
The four suspects — three of whom are brothers — allegedly offered the hush money to the boyfriend of the victim, who accused Nechemya Weberman, 53, an unlicensed therapist, of molesting her.
She claimed Weberman had been abusing her for three years, starting when she was 12 and began receiving counseling from him. She is now 17.
Weberman’s arrest created a firestorm of controvery within the Orthodox community as factions took sides, with one group holding fundraisers for the accused — they raised more than $500,000 for his defense — while others vociferously protested the perceived attempt to protect a possible child abuser rather than his victim.
The two groups nearly came to blows during protests following a recent appearance by Weberman in a packed courtroom. His supporters insist he is incapable of a crime and accused the girl of lying. Her supporters stood firmly behind her and said she was being victimized twice.
According to sources, the four suspects reached out to the victim's 22-year-old boyfriend.
“They contacted the boyfriend because they thought they could get to her through him,” a source said.
The men, speaking in Yiddish to the boyfriend, offered to pay $500,000 and insisted that he, his girlfriend, Weberman and the community as a whole would be better off if she took the bribe and the case went away, sources said. They suggested she could even move to Israel and start a new life.
The defendants also allegedly threatened to ruin the boyfriend's business. He owns a Kosher restaurant, and they warned him they would rip down the sign on his store if his girlfriend did not go along with their plan. One afternoon, in fact, they allegedly tore down the sign to show they meant business.
The four suspects were rousted out of their homes around early Thursday morning, handcuffed and taken to the Brooklyn DA’s office on Jay Street shortly after 5 a.m.
Since 2009, DA Charles Hynes' office has arrested more than 100 sex offenders within the ultra-Orthodox community after launching an outreach program called “Voice of Justice,” or Kol Tzedeck in Hebrew, to get victims to come directly to his office with complaints.
The arrests again focus attention on suspected widespread intimidation of victims of pedophilia and sex assaults within the ultra-Orthodox community, which has a historical cultural ban on cooperating with authorities and insists victims bring their complaints only to local rabbis.
In the past, victims who went to police were subjected to harsh harassment, ostracized, kicked out of synagogues, thrown out of schools and even tossed out of their homes.
In a recent interview with “On The Inside,” Hynes said he hoped any future arrests for coercion or bribery would send a powerful message that might break the community’s traditional code of silence, known as “Messira,” a Hebrew epithet for "informant."
Source: DNAinfo.com - By Murray Weiss,
This should be a wake up call to all RABBIS, and to the so so called ASKUNIM, This is only the beginning, DA Hynes is out for revenge
ReplyDeletethis is all about a drop out failure boy that any normal human being in our community wants to stay away from, therefore he tries to show everyone what he can do. Having a restaurant in this community means trust. We cant trust a buy that sleeps around every day with other girls and does more things that are totally not in line with our religious rules. Like stealing and not eating kosher. A person who does things like the above cant be trusted in selling kosher food. Therefore the rabbi took of the rabbinical approval for the food sold there!!!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous # 2: Wait till your kid drops out and only then will you understand what's really going on! I'm not trying to wish you bad here, but as our chachamim say "Ein Chuchem, K'bar Nisoyen" You will never truly understand what's going on here and all the trouble our kids go through these days, until you'll feel it on your own skin. There's a reason this kid dropped out, and that is what our Askunim K'lal and Mechanchim don't want to understand. It's time we deal with real life head on, not with a blindfold. As long as you walk either blindfolded, or in the complete dark, you will in-evidently bump your head into the wall.
ReplyDeleteA Bar Nisoyin
this dude changed management on the disgraced restaurant from one day to another, without asking or notifying the Rav hamachshir, which is a major kashrut violation, and gave him no other choice than to remove his hashgocha indefinitely. so now this bum wants to get back on the rav with a well calculated revenge.
ReplyDeleteWhatever you may think about "This Dude" (as you call him), you may try and succeed to kill the messenger, but you won't kill the message. Unfortunately I'm part of a silent majority (if not majority yet, it'll soon be) from Williamsburg that are waking up and saying enough. Our leaders and DA hynes always thought we are a solid voting bloc. But they're now finding out that a large part of us although we dance to their music, come out to their rallies when called upon, but when we pull the curtain at the voting booth, we finally let them know we are no Bloc! There are people who silently disagree with all this. Even if he is as you call him Bum or Dude, if we are all silent we need a bum or dude to break this strangehold on our necks. Kill him there are many more behind him to follow. So this system will ultimately change to the better. Its very unfortunate that it takes so many kids to fall. Btw I am one of of us williamsburg. I like and admire our lifestyle, and values. I'm not one looking to leave, and let me break it to you, there are a lot of us like me. Its not that nebech, that dude, that bum as you like to address them just to strengthen your argument. You might be able to break the messenger, but u never will succeed in breaking the message. Its too late. The earlier our leaders will recognize this, the stronger our community can again become.
ReplyDeleteA proud member of the williamsburg Chasidic Comunity.
(Yes I even get invited to sit on Mizrach in shul when I'm a guest there)
When a Fish Stinks, it stinks from the head.
ReplyDeleteAs is says in the Torah: Veasimem Beroshehem.
What had transpired in this story is nothing new, such bribes on 24/7.
This is only the first time the DA got them arrested because the DA had no choice after being under so much pressure.
The funny thing is that the allegations against the DA himself is no less than that the DA himself allegedly also accepted such bribes to hush things up until now and therefore the DA himself also needs to be arrested just as these men were.
But the biggest story of all is yet to come and that is the elephant in the room:
Where sis these men get $500 thousand dollars from?
Anyone who doubts if this $500,000 is the very same exact $500,000 which was raised for weberman by the Kehila, is very naive.
The next headline will read that the money trail has the heads of the Kehila arrested and that is when ... it will really hit the fan.
I live in Williamsburg, and I know a bit more about this story. This so called molested girl and her boyfriend and all of their supporters, are just making up stories. They are all children that nebach went off the derech. They are kids that left yiddishkeit, so that they can have a life of fun and impurity. Weberman is a counselor for these kids, and advises them how to live a good life w/o completely going off. These kids are not forced to go. Somehow they decided to make up stories, and get him locked up. They behave in inappropriate behavior, doing things that even goyim know is wrong. So, please dear readers, if you are frum, then you surely wouldn't jump to conclusions, giving full right to kids that are off the derech and mechalel shabbos.
ReplyDeleteII am frum am from the comunity and I honestley don't know if the story is true or not. So the mitzvah of Pidyen Shevuim as far as I know goes for any yiddish person in jail. No matter what crime he commited. So I believe our comunity has every right and obligation to raise money for Mr webermans defense. Even as a non religous jew, or non-jews alike, as american citizens we believe in "innocent until proven guilty". Now having said that, our Leaders have no right in destoying the reputation of this girl, her family, or the ones who believe her side of the story. I'd like to see you talk after you have an off the derech kid on your own. I bet you'll sing a different song. Too many like me, with payos, beard, long reckel etc. Are crying there heart on their pillows at night and the leaders of our Kehilos, Yeshivos, girls schools, and comunity leaders don't blink an eye.
ReplyDeleteA williamsburger to stay.