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 Newsand 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.
By Kerry Wills AND Oren Yaniv / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
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