On the eve of his scheduled trial date, prosecutors turned
over to Sam Kellner’s defense attorneys evidence that appears highly damaging
to Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes’ case against the chasidic sex
abuse whistleblower, prompting his lawyers to call for an “outside
investigation.”
Kellner, a resident of Borough Park, is charged with paying
a witness — a man The Jewish Week refers to as a “Yoel” — to fabricate claims
of sexual abuse by Baruch Lebovits, a cantor and prominent member of the
Munkacs chasidic community.
Kellner, whose son is also an alleged Lebovits
victim — and who brought additional Lebovits victims to the police — is also
charged with attempting to extort money from the Lebovits family via emissaries
sent to Lebovits’ son Meyer.
The evidence, which was turned over last Friday, three days
before the scheduled start of the trial on Monday, July 8, includes notes of
interviews prosecutors conducted with a key witness over the past two weeks.
In
the interviews, Yoel made a series of inconsistent statements, including some that
directly contradict his grand jury testimony against Kellner.
For example, while Yoel testified in the Kellner grand jury
that he knew Lebovits from synagogue, in a July 1 interview with Nicholas
Batsidis and Joseph Alexis, two assistant district attorneys, and Rackets
Division Chief Michael Vecchione, he claimed that he had “never seen Baruch
Lebovits in his life.”
In the same interview, Yoel also denied picking Lebovits out
of a photo array, which, along with Yoel’s statements to a detective, led to Lebovits’
arrest. However, five days earlier, on June 26, he told prosecutors that
Lebovits “could have molested me. [I] can’t really say.”
During the course of these interviews, Yoel also told
prosecutors that the reason he came forward with his allegations against
Kellner was because, according to their summary of the conversation, he had
become “disenchanted” with him after Kellner failed to pay him “a fee that the
two had agreed upon for his false testimony.” However, in the Kellner grand
jury, Yoel testified that Kellner gave him approximately $10,000 to testify
against Lebovits.
All of the inconsistencies and contradictions in Yoel’s
statements seriously undermine the prosecution’s case against Kellner, experts
say.
According to former Manhattan prosecutor and defense
attorney Mark Bederow, “This witness has self-immolated.
First, he swears to a
pattern of years-long abuse by Lebovits. Then he reverses course and claims
that he lied under oath and that although he knows Lebovits, he fabricated the
abuse claims against him because Kellner paid him to do so.
Then, on the eve of
[Kellner’s] trial, he contradicts both prior sworn statements by bizarrely
claiming he has never met Lebovits, but that [Lebovits] ‘may’ have molested
him.
He then alters his sworn testimony by claiming that he had not been paid
by Kellner before perjuring himself at Kellner’s request.
“I don’t see any set of circumstances under which the DA can
proceed with Yoel as a witness against Kellner.”
An e-mail to DA spokesman Jerry Schmetterer seeking comment
on whether, in light of these recent disclosures, the DA plans to dismiss the
charges against Kellner relating to Yoel did not receive a response.
READ MORE AT: The Jewish Week
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