WEST ROGERS PARK — A West Rogers Park rabbi charged with
sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2006 wasn't arrested until late last
month, despite the fact a state agency substantiated abuse allegations
involving the boy and seven other victims in 2007.
Police say they couldn't get cooperation from witnesses at
the time, and it wasn't until recently that the boy, now 22, came forward to
detectives to seek the prosecution of his alleged attacker.
Now the accuser says he is frustrated and embittered by the
slow road to justice in the case. He said he spoke to authorities at the time,
although he acknowledged his family did not call police immediately.
He's also upset with members of the Orthodox Jewish
community, who he said pushed him not to pursue formal charges. He and his
father said community leaders allowed Rabbi Aryeh "Larry" Dudovitz,
45, to remain at a West Rogers Park synagogue and continue working with Jewish
families.
"Everyone told me to back off: 'You’re not going to get
anything done. It’s just going to stress you out. It’s going to complicate
things. It could turn against you,' " the man said in an interview with
DNAinfo.com Chicago. "I just want to know the truth — who doesn’t want to
know the truth?"
In 2006, the accuser, then 15 years old, and his family
worshipped with Dudovitz at a small storefront synagogue, the Moshiach Center,
in West Rogers Park.
The center adheres to Chabad messianism, a controversial
belief that late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994, was the
messiah, or savior, of the Jewish people.
The accuser looked up to Dudovitz, who he said mentored him
before his Bar Mitzvah, and the two spent lots of time together.
"I didn’t have a really close relationship with my
father, and you know, [Dudovitz] was always there," he said.
One night in October 2006, Dudovitz came back with the
family to their West Rogers Park home after celebrating the Jewish holiday
Sukkot at a mutual friend's home.
The accuser said he and Dudovitz went to the teen's basement
room, where they drank beer. At some point, he said he felt sick and planned to
go to bed, and he told Dudovitz to sleep on a couch.
But after falling asleep, the accuser said he was awakened
by Dudovitz. Court documents allege Dudovitz gave "the victim oral
copulation while the victim was sleeping."
'I felt like I was at fault'
Afterward, the accuser said he felt he was to blame for the
incident, thinking, how could his rabbi do something wrong? Initially, he
didn't tell anyone about what had happened.
"I felt like I was at fault and did something
inappropriate in front of my rabbi," he said. "I looked up to him
like a father figure. He took advantage of that. I guess that was the hardest
thing."
Dudovitz remained close with the teen's family, and for
months after the incident, the accuser said the rabbi continued to make
advances toward him. Dudovitz allegedly did so again three months later just
before the teen left Chicago to attend a Jewish high school in Muenster, N.Y.
"He was standing in front of the bed where it
happened," said the accuser, recounting the last interaction he allegedly
had with the rabbi. "He was really antsy.
As soon as I got down [to the
basement bedroom] he just started grabbing me, and, you know, he was telling me
how much he loved me, and how much he was going to miss me when I was at
school."
The accuser said he pushed Dudovitz away and ran upstairs to
his mother. Dudovitz followed, but left the house.
"She cornered me and made me tell her everything,"
he said of his mother.
Dudovitz, who is out of jail after posting 10 percent of a
$100,000 bail, could not be reached for comment. Messages left at Dudovitz's
home in the 6400 block of North Albany went unreturned. Dudovitz's lawyer,
Richard Kling, declined to comment.
Dudovitz appeared in court Friday, and prosecutors revealed
that a grand jury has indicted him on the charges. He is scheduled to be
arraigned July 5.
The accuser said his father wanted to call the police at the
time of the abuse, but his mother decided to call a rabbi at the boy's school
first. His mother didn't return calls requesting a comment.
"Then everything went to s---," he said. "We
should have called the cops [immediately] — should've listened to my dad and
called the cops."
DCFS investigates
But authorities did learn of accusations against Dudovitz.
The Department of Children and Family Services received a call on its hotline
in December 2006 and concluded an investigation on Oct. 5, 2007, that
substantiated one serious allegation and seven lesser allegations of abuse
involving other children, said spokesman David Clarkin.
Clarkin said he could not release the identities of
Dudovitz's alleged victims or provide additional details on the specific
allegations. DCFS, however, does pass on its findings to law enforcement.
Police then launched an investigation in 2007, but the
accuser's parents "refused to cooperate" with detectives, Chicago
Police Department spokesman Adam Collins said last week. Collins said it wasn't
until the accuser came forward as an adult that a case could be made to charge
Dudovitz late last month.
The police investigation only involved a single victim,
Collins said.
The accuser and his father denied the family wouldn't cooperate
in the police investigation six years ago. The accuser said he recalls talking
to a detective as a teen, and his father said his wife "spent months
trying to get the detective to respond to her calls."
Members of the Orthodox Jewish community also were aware of
the allegations, the accuser and his father said.
The accuser said he met one-on-one with Rabbi Gedalia Dov
Schwartz, the "chief rabbi" of Chicago's Beth Din, a local Jewish
rabbinical court, and outlined the allegations against Dudovitz. He said he
also met with other high-ranking rabbis on the council.
Schwartz didn't respond to multiple requests for comment.
Rabbi Moshe Kushner, executive director of the Chicago
Rabbinical Council, which administers Chicago's Beth Din, initially denied
Dudovitz came before the Beth Din, which is supposed to deal with issues of
Jewish law and conversions, its website says. The website makes no mention of
investigating serious allegations of abuse.
"He had nothing to do with us," Kushner said of
Dudovitz.
However, Kushner said Dudovitz's case might have been heard
by an independent Beth Din that hears more serious cases, especially those
regarding sexual abuse.
But he said Schwartz would be the only rabbi at the council
who could answer questions about the Beth Din.
It's unclear if the rabbis ever communicated with
authorities or took any action regarding the case.
The rabbis, like counselors
and school teachers, would be considered mandated reporters of child abuse
under state law, said Lyn Schollett, an attorney with the Illinois Coalition
Against Sexual Assault.
The accuser said he wasn't aware of any action being taken.
"They do their own thing. It’s a problem, especially
when it comes to these types of cases in the community. They still feel like
Jews are living in the citadels," said the accuser, referring to
fortifications in ancient Jerusalem.
"Maybe they felt like they didn’t have responsibility
to handle the Dudovitz case. It hurts my tongue to say that. That’s why I want
to get to the bottom of it."
No comments:
Post a Comment