I feel sorry for headline writers. I really do. They’ve got so little space to both summarize long stories AND attract readers’ attention.
So I cut them lots of slack. But it’s tough to see headline writers at three news outlets get one story SO wrong as the recent one involving Boston Rabbi Barry Starr who allegedly sexually exploited a teenager and then apparently misled and stole from his flock to conceal his crimes.
The Boston Globe’s headline read
“Rabbi allegedly misused funds to keep liaison with teen quiet”
The Raw Story opted for
“Boston rabbi accused of misusing $480K in temple funds to pay off gay sex accuser”
The Jewish Daily Forward went with:
“Boston Rabbi Barry Starr Paid Teenage Boy $500K To Cover Up Affair”
At best, these headlines miss the point. At worst, they’re dreadfully misleading.
Let’s go one by one and examine the problems here.
–When adults have sex, it’s a “liaison.” When an adult sexually exploits a 16 year old, it’s a crime. Words like “affair,” “liaison” and “relationship” imply consent. And a child cannot consent to having sex with an adult (even if the predator is gentle and convinces the child that it’s “love”).
–The word “gay” here is wrong. For starters, it too implies consent. (Contrast, for example, the phrase “gay sex” with the phrase “heterosexual rape.”) It also suggests that the rabbi may be gay, which may or may not be the case. (Abuse, most therapists say, is about power, not about sexual orientation.) It suggests that the victim may be gay. And finally, it’s irrelevant (Why not say “rough sex” or “naked sex?” Because this has no bearing on the crime itself: a grown up sexually exploiting a youngster. )
And how about the word “accuser?” As I read these articles, the rabbi never denies that he “had sex with” a sixteen year old. So doesn’t the word “accuser” also minimize or mischaracterize what happened here.
Finally, there’s the question of emphasis. If a bank robber parked improperly during his crime, the headline would not read “Alleged criminal parked illegally and robbed bank.”
So why did some coverage stress Rabbi Starr’s alleged financial crimes and minimize his sexual crimes? Shouldn’t the headline have read something like “Rabbi is accused of child sex abuse and theft?”
It helps predators and hurts victims when we describe child sex crimes in ways that diminish or downplay these crimes.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2014-05-22 17:51:402014-05-22 17:51:40Everyone got it wrong in Boston rabbi case, David Clohessy, SNAP
The clergy sex abuse lawsuit against the Twin Cities archdiocese headed northwest Monday, when documents related to child abuse by five monks at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., were released and a lawsuit was filed to pry open the abbey’s files.
The letters and internal memos were among the thousands of pages of documents the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis provided to attorneys as part of a lawsuit.
They covered five monks previously identified as abusers — including the Rev. Richard Eckroth, who brought hundreds of students to an abbey cabin for overnight trips.
The suits filed Monday in Stearns County District Court focus on Eckroth and seek the full release of the abbey’s files on abusers. Attorney Jeff Anderson said many of the archdiocese documents were heavily edited.
“A lot of material that should be made public hasn’t been,’’ Anderson said.
Still, the documents show that the abbey used the “geographic solution” with monks facing abuse charges, namely, they were moved to other churches, said Patrick Wall, a former monk at St. John’s who now is an investigator at Anderson’s law firm.
There were so many allegations against Eckroth, for example, that he was transferred to an island in the Bahamas in 1977, where he stayed for nearly 15 years, Wall said.
The two men who filed lawsuits against Eckroth Monday were among the “cabin kids” — boys Eckroth routinely brought to an abbey cabin for weekend trips, Wall said.
The lawsuit claims that Eckroth engaged in “unpermitted sexual misconduct” at the cabin with one of the plaintiffs from age 8 to age 10, and the other from age 10 to age 13.
Handwritten notes from the abbey showed that more than 300 students went with Eckroth to the cabin from roughly 1970 to 1974, before he was sent to the Bahamas. Now 87, the former parish priest and philosophy professor lives at the abbey, Wall said.
How complaints were handled
The archdiocese files show how abuse complaints were addressed at the chancery, at least 15 years ago. In a 1997 memo, then-Archbishop Harry Flynn writes about a lawsuit filed against Cosmas Dahlheimer and Thomas Gillespie, which “has reached a key juncture at which we as an Archdiocese must consider whether it is our best interest to notify members” of the Church of St. Bernard in St. Paul and St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Stillwater — where the priests served.
“Normally, common sense would dictate that we withhold information from the public for at least two good reasons,” Flynn wrote. “First, the lawsuits may be settled outside of court and not become a matter of public record. And second, an early release of information gives the media a longer period of time to sensationalize the story.”
Flynn goes on to recommend, however, that he and the Rev. Kevin McDonough, then the chancery’s point person on abuse, prepare a memo that would be read at masses at the churches.
The documents posted on Anderson’s website discuss everything from payments for psychological therapy for victims to temporary assignments for priests.
The files were obtained in a lawsuit filed in Ramsey County last year by John Doe 1, who claims he was a sex abuse victim of former priest Thomas Adamson. The “nuisance” lawsuit against the archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona argues that the church put public safety at risk by allowing the clergy who abused children to continue to work. The nuisance provision allowed Anderson attorneys to depose Archbishop John Nienstedt in March.
The lawsuit filed in Stearns County makes similar charges, which allows attorneys to seek broad range of evidence.
In the wake of several recent sentences in cases involving the fervently Orthodox community, sex abuse survivors and activists are expressing concerns about the Brooklyn district attorney’s commitment to understanding and seeking substantive justice in that community.
Several weeks ago, a man who threw bleach in the face of anti-abuse activist Nuchem Rosenberg pleaded guilty to felony assault and received five years’ probation. The no-jail sentence for Meilich Schnitzler shocked and dismayed many in advocate and survivor circles, and prompted Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton to write a blog post in which she declared, “Instead of serving the years in prison the crime should have earned, Schnitzler confessed to throwing the bleach on Rosenberg and received nothing but unsupervised probation.”
The deal, Hamilton noted, “will hardly deter future violence against the survivors’ advocates.”
A spokesman for the DA, Kenneth Thompson, defended the deal, telling The Jewish Week that “given that it was the defendant’s first arrest and [Rabbi Rosenberg’s] injuries were not permanent” — something Rabbi Rosenberg disputes, claiming he requires daily eye drops to deal with persistent discomfort from the attack — a felony conviction with no jail time was a just outcome. The sentence was comparable, the spokesman said, to what someone outside the community would receive for a similar offense. This explanation appears consistent with Thompson’s oft-repeated campaign promise of “equal justice” for all of Brooklyn.
The spokesman added that the deal in no way “takes away from” the work Rabbi Rosenberg does to encourage and help “victims to come forward” and report abuse allegations to secular authorities.
While members of the chasidic community conceded to The Jewish Week that a felony conviction can and typically does have serious ramifications for someone living outside their community, all emphasized that for someone like Schnitzler, who works in his family’s business and has the support of many in his community, a felony conviction without jail time is virtually meaningless. Indeed, community members and observers alike expressed the view that a misdemeanor conviction with even minimal jail time would have served as much more of a deterrent, thereby making victims and whistleblowers feel safer.
According to Asher Lipner, a psychologist who treats survivors of sexual abuse in the frum community, “[The fact] that the violent physical assault on a leading advocate [resulted in no jail time] left a deep impression on many victims. What I see in my practice is that it is, unfortunately, less likely than ever that victims of sexual abuse will report their assaults to the police. They are even more scared of reporting their abuse than ever.”
More recently, a man named Yoel Malik pleaded guilty to violating a 13-year-old boy in a hotel room and received a 60-day jail sentence plus probation. The DA’s office did not respond to a request from The Jewish Week seeking more information about the reasons for the deal.
Defense attorneys for another chasidic child molester, Baruch Lebovits, invoked the Malik sentence last week in court to argue for a more lenient sentence for their own client.
Lebovits had been convicted of eight counts of sex abuse after trial in 2010 and sentenced to 10 ½ to 32 years in prison, but saw his conviction reversed in 2012 because of a prosecutor’s error and a new trial ordered.
Lebovits’ release from prison came immediately after another man, Samuel Kellner, was indicted for bribing a witness to falsely testify against Lebovits and attempting to extort the Lebovits family for $400,000. The case against Kellner fell apart last summer, and earlier this year prosecutors dismissed it, citing the lack of credibility of the witnesses against Kellner: Lebovits’ own son, Meyer; Moshe Friedman, a politically powerful and connected Lebovits supporter; and a young man, MT, who prosecutors had strong reason to believe was a genuine Lebovits victim who was manipulated in recanting his allegations and falsely accusing Kellner.
Last Friday, Lebovits pleaded guilty to the eight counts. While the DA had offered him two to six years years in prison, Lebovits ultimately received a two-year sentence, which, after credit for time served and time off for good behavior, could end up being only several months.
While the judge made it clear that his decision was based not on the Malik disposition but his own research into average sentences for similar crimes and other factors in the case (the victim entered into a non-disclosed settlement agreement regarding the abuse and, according to statements made by the defense, expressed satisfaction with the length of time Lebovits had already served), the resolution of the case prompted strong reactions from advocates and survivors. Many of them were less concerned with the length of the sentence than what they perceive to be Lebovits supporters’ unpunished corruption of the criminal justice system.
“The outcome of this case continues to send a message to victims of such heinous crimes that politics and money trump justice,” Chaim Levin, an abuse survivor and vocal advocate who supported Thompson for DA, told The Jewish Week.
“A concerned father [Samuel Kellner] who was looking out for his son and for others was labeled as a criminal and charged as such, while the real danger, Mr. Lebovits, lived freely with unfettered access to children.
“Lebovits’ admission of guilt is a good thing,” Levin continued, “but it pales in comparison to the amount of damage he has inflicted on tens, if not hundreds, of innocent young children. Despite this, Lebovits will still be given a hero’s welcome home while his victims are pushed deeper and deeper into a bubble of fear and intimidation that demands silence.
“I sincerely hope that this isn’t a preview into what the tenure of the new district attorney will look like,” Levin added.
“Many of us campaigned through blood and sweat to bring real change for victims of such crimes in Brooklyn and we hope that Mr. Thompson isn’t headed in the direction of his predecessor, Mr. [Charles] Hynes.”
Rabbi Yosef Blau, the director of religious guidance at Yeshiva University’s rabbinical seminary, feels that “the [Lebovits] plea bargain is disappointing, though it is not the victory claimed by Lebovits’ supporters.”
“What is most troubling,” Rabbi Blau told The Jewish Week, “is how poorly the case was handled: the apparent collusion between elements in the [former] Brooklyn DA’s office and Lebovits’ attorneys, and [the fact that prosecutors have not pursued evidence] of witness intimidation and tampering [in the case].”
Sex abuse survivor and advocate Joel Engelman agrees.
“I think that even though [DA Thompson’s] hands may have been tied regarding the plea deal, there is a lot more that he must do regarding the crimes and mismanagement surrounding the case. The flagrant perjury, witness intimidation, blackmail and bribery involved in this case must be tended to if the office of the DA wants to maintain any credibility. The victims of Lebovits’ crimes deserve a lot more than this mockery of justice.”
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CONCORD — The Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office charged Woodside Elementary teacher Joseph Martin with 150 counts of molestation, but because of difficulties with the law, it was much trickier deciding whether to prosecute his bosses for possibly failing to report the alleged child abuse.
Prosecutors say their hands were tied because the “mandated reporting” law’s language creates a narrow one-year statute of limitations window that had closed.
Tina Jones, a Concord mother of two alleged victims, and others, including the district attorney and Concord police chief, say the law’s restrictive wording stymies prosecutions. They say it should be reviewed and, if necessary, changed.
“For many of the families in this, it’s just another level of victimization … to have no legal ramifications for (district employees) is so frustrating,” Jones said. “I think a one-year statute of limitations is ridiculous.”
School employees, among other people who work with children, are considered “mandated reporters” required by law to immediately report suspicions of child abuse. Failure to do so is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Critics, however, say the language in Penal Code section 11166 (c) makes prosecuting failures to report nearly impossible. The statute of limitations is one year, but — as is the case in many school abuse cases — law enforcement often does not find out until long ¿after the one-year expiration date for misdemeanor prosecution has passed.
In a confusing twist, the window can be extended until one year after law enforcement discovers the failure to report, but only if prosecutors can prove that the person who failed to notify police actually knew rather than suspected the abuse was taking place, a legal threshold that it extremely difficult to prove.
The steep burden of proof helped kill any chance at prosecuting Martin’s bosses at the Mt. Diablo school district for reporting failures. Martin, who has been charged with molesting 14 Woodside Elementary students, was placed on administrative leave in April 2013 and arrested in June. He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial is scheduled to begin May 27.
Contra Costa District Attorney Mark Peterson said the law should be reviewed and suggested it be changed.
His office considered filing charges against the principal and other employees for failures to report accusations made against Martin in 2006, when a teacher first alerted the principal that she walked in on Martin and a boy in a classroom hours after school let out, with their shoes off.
Other teachers also notified the principal of inappropriate behavior involving Martin. But Peterson said the statute of limitations restrictions rendered much of the case moot.
After making that decision, Peterson met with his county’s school superintendents to reinforce reporting responsibilities.
“Should they have reported to police? Yes,” Peterson said of Mt. Diablo administrators. “That’s where the difficulty lies, in the failure to go to police. Let them handle it; it’s what they’re trained to do.”
Concord police Chief Guy Swanger, whose agency investigated Martin and school administrators and nearly had to issue a search warrant to get district documents, said a review of the law “sounds reasonable.”
“In general, I think crimes involving children should have longer statute of limitations,” he said.
In March, Swanger testified in Sacramento on behalf of a bill aimed at strengthening reporting responsibilities.
“One of the most complicated cases to report is on one of their own, not when it’s parents or someone associated with the school,” Swanger said of education employees.
The law makes prosecutions extremely rare, however. In November 2012, a Santa Clara County jury convicted O.B. Whaley Elementary School Principal Lyn Vijayendran for failing to report a student’s graphic allegations of abuse by teacher Craig Chandler. It was the county’s first conviction for the misdemeanor.
In Vijayendran’s case, she was charged within a year of her inaction, leaving prosecutors a lower burden of proof to meet — that she had “reasonable suspicion” of abuse.
“They’re not easy cases,” said prosecutor Alison Filo, who tried the case. “The people are often likable … and jurors don’t want to convict people for negligence especially when there’s no criminal benefit.”
Bill Grimm, senior attorney at Oakland’s National Center for Youth Law, said he could see the challenges the district attorney faced in prosecuting the Concord principal.
“It does bother me that a person in her authority as principal, who is charged with protecting children on campuses, will not suffer consequences,” Grimm said, “… because the consequences of not reporting were unbelievably tragic.”
Contact Matthias Gafni at 925-952-5026. Follow him at Twitter.com/mgafni.
mandated reporting statute of limitations
Under California Penal Code 11166 (c), the burden of proof changes for the misdemeanor if you want the one-year statute of limitations to begin when the crime is discovered by law enforcement. The threshold goes from proving a reporter “reasonably suspected” child abuse to if the abuse was “known” by the reporter. Here’s the code section:
(c) A mandated reporter who fails to report an incident of known or reasonably suspected child abuse or neglect as required by this section is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months confinement in a county jail or by a fine of one thousand dollars ($1,000) or by both that imprisonment and fine. If a mandated reporter intentionally conceals his or her failure to report an incident known by the mandated reporter to be abuse or severe neglect under this section, the failure to report is a continuing offense until an agency specified in Section 11165.9 discovers the offense.
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Columbus — Victims of rape or sexual battery could pursue criminal charges against their attackers decades after incidents occur, under legislation being considered in the Ohio Senate.
Senate Bill 324 would extend the statute of limitations on such crimes if DNA analysis of evidence identifies the offender.
“Victims of sexual offenses are faced not only with a physical trauma, but they are left with lifelong emotional scars,” Sen. Shannon Jones (R-Springboro), a primary co-sponsor of the bill, said in testimony submitted to the Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee. “An immense amount of emotional strength is needed to relive a violent crime through court proceedings. It can take years for victims of sexual crimes to gather the courage necessary to pursue prosecution.”
Jones and co-sponsor Sen. Jim Hughes (R-Columbus) offered testimony May 20 before the lawmaker panel, where SB 324 had its first hearing.
Under current law, prosecution of rape or sexual battery crimes generally must begin within 20 years of an offense. Under SB 324, the timeframe would be extended in cases where DNA evidence pinpoints a particular perpetrator.
Hughes said at least 27 other states have comparable DNA exceptions already in place.
“Victims of rape and sexual battery experience a grave emotional, physical and psychological disturbance that, frankly, I can’t even fathom,” Hughes said. “It is no surprise that many victims need time to heal and come forward to friends and family before they can consider testifying before the public about their traumatic experience. SB 324 would … allow victims to take the time they may need to emotionally prepare themselves to speak about the crime.”
Marc Kovac is the Dix Capital Bureau Chief. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.
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STOUGHTON — After allegedly starting a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old male two years ago, Rabbi Barry Starr paid as much as $480,000 to buy the silence of a Milton man who professed to be the teenager’s brother and who threatened to expose the relationship, according to sworn statements released Monday in Stoughton District Court.
Starr, who developed a national reputation as a leader in Conservative Judaism in his 28 years as rabbi of Temple Israel of Sharon, allegedly transferred money from the rabbi’s discretionary fund to the alleged extortionist. That man — identified in court documents as Nicholas Zemeitus, 29, of Milton — told authorities the rabbi suggested altering checks written by elderly congregants to increase their value, according to documents that police filed in court while seeking search warrants.
Rabbi Starr also sought and received tens of thousands of dollars from longtime congregants and used that money to assure the man’s continued silence, according to court documents. Many of those congregants revered the rabbi and thought of him as family, including an elderly Holocaust survivor who is now suing his former spiritual leader.
Among those approached by Rabbi Starr for money before he resigned was Arnie Freedman, the temple’s president. The rabbi told Freedman several weeks ago that he was in trouble and needed to borrow $50,000, according to the documents.
“Starr would not describe the trouble he was in,” Scott Leonard, a detective in the Sharon Police Department, wrote in his statement to the court.
Freedman pressed the rabbi for more details about why he needed the money. “Starr told Freedman that he [Starr] got involved in a romantic relationship with a younger man, who he [Starr] met online and that the man’s older brother was now extorting money from him,” Detective Leonard wrote. “Starr said the man was threatening to make details of the romantic relationship public.”
In an e-mailed statement Monday, an attorney representing Starr said that the rabbi had fallen victim to a “vicious extortioner.”
The detective said the allegations supported potential charges of larceny by false pretense, forgery, and forging a document. It was unclear from the documents whether Starr or Zemeitus, or both, could face those charges. Both of their homes were searched.
According to the court documents, Starr told Freedman that the alleged extortion by Zemeitus started shortly after the rabbi’s relationship began with the youth about two years ago. It was unclear how long the relationship lasted. The teenager’s name was not in the documents. The age of consent in Massachusetts is 16 — the teen’s age when the relationship allegedly started, according to the documents.
Zemeitus could not be reached by telephone Monday. A woman answered the door Monday night at the Milton residence listed in public records as Zemeitus’s home and said he would not be home until later in the evening. The woman declined further comment.
In a conversation he had with Detective Leonard and State Police Lieutenant David McSweeney, Zemeitus said he met the rabbi on Craigslist, a website known for enabling casual sexual encounters, according to the court documents. After exchanging e-mails, the two met at Starr’s home in Sharon, where he lived with his wife and two children.
Zemeitus told investigators he thought he was going to meet a 55-year-old woman and became upset when he arrived at the rabbi’s home and found a bearded man in his 60s.
“Zemeitus told us that he got angry as Starr lied about his true gender and appearance,” Leonard wrote. “Zemeitus told Starr that he was going to inform Starr’s wife about the meeting and that he would be outed.”
In response, the rabbi offered to pay Zemeitus $100 to keep the meeting quiet, Leonard wrote in his report.
It was not clear from the documents how the seemingly chance meeting supported Zemeitus’s story that he was acting on behalf of his younger brother. It remained unclear whether Zemeitus is in fact the teenager’s brother.
Zemeitus told investigators he met Starr several times over the past two years, including at Temple Israel, and that the money was exchanged to buy his silence. He told police he estimated receiving $200,000 from the rabbi; Starr told Freedman he paid Zemeitus an estimated $480,000.
Over the past month, said Zemeitus, Starr gave him eight checks belonging to the temple or the rabbi’s discretionary fund, which is often used to help congregants in need, and told Zemeitus to change the dollar amounts and deposit them into his bank account.
“Starr told him that the checks came from people from within the temple who were elderly or people who would not know that the check denominations were altered,” Leonard wrote.
Zemeitus allegedly added two zeros to the end of an $18 check — a spiritual number in Judaism that represents life or good luck — written by a congregant, according to court documents. Another $18 check left in the temple’s donation box by a woman was also altered and cashed, made to look as if it had been written for $1,800, as well, Leonard said.
Zemeitus also used one of the women’s checking account numbers to pay several bills, including $148.54 to T-Mobile, $540.63 to Progressive Direct Insurance, and $537.32 to NStar, Leonard wrote.
The utility account was in the name of Alexa Anderson, who lives at the same address as Zemeitus.
“Zemeitus told us that Starr had made those payments for him and Anderson,” Leonard wrote.
Officials at the Norfolk district attorney’s office declined to comment.
Thomas Hoopes, a Boston attorney representing Starr, described his 64-year-old client as a victim.
“The rabbi, his family, and his community have been the victims of a vicious extortioner,” he wrote in an e-mail. “The case is as simple and as awful as that.”
He added: “Law enforcement will hopefully determine the truth of any story Zemeitus has made up and assess any other allegations.”
Last week, Starr was also accused of failing to repay a $50,000 loan he received from Morris Kesselman, an 87-year-old congregant who secured a lien on the rabbi’s home.
In a lawsuit filed in Stoughton District Court, Kesselman, a Holocaust survivor, said Starr came to his house in Sharon last fall and pleaded for the money, saying he had “a severe personal problem.”
This month, hundreds of members of the Conservative temple received a letter from the rabbi, in which he acknowledged his wrongdoing. “Sometimes people who try to be good people do things that are wrong, hurtful, and shameful,” wrote Starr.
Congregants who attended a meeting last week were still struggling to comprehend the allegations and sudden resignation of someone they have looked up to for so long.
In a statement, Freedman, the temple’s president, said the congregation “has been profoundly troubled and upset by these events.”
“We are cooperating fully with law enforcement officials,” he said. “At the same time, we are endeavoring to respect the rabbi’s request for privacy. We have come together as a community, united in our faith in God and our shared sense of sadness.”
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2014-05-20 17:52:202014-06-22 17:53:14Rabbi allegedly misused funds to keep liaison with teen quiet, David Abel, Boston Globe
Everyone got it wrong in Boston rabbi case, David Clohessy, SNAP
/in Massachusetts /by SOL ReformI feel sorry for headline writers. I really do. They’ve got so little space to both summarize long stories AND attract readers’ attention.
So I cut them lots of slack. But it’s tough to see headline writers at three news outlets get one story SO wrong as the recent one involving Boston Rabbi Barry Starr who allegedly sexually exploited a teenager and then apparently misled and stole from his flock to conceal his crimes.
The Boston Globe’s headline read
“Rabbi allegedly misused funds to keep liaison with teen quiet”
The Raw Story opted for
“Boston rabbi accused of misusing $480K in temple funds to pay off gay sex accuser”
The Jewish Daily Forward went with:
“Boston Rabbi Barry Starr Paid Teenage Boy $500K To Cover Up Affair”
At best, these headlines miss the point. At worst, they’re dreadfully misleading.
Let’s go one by one and examine the problems here.
–When adults have sex, it’s a “liaison.” When an adult sexually exploits a 16 year old, it’s a crime. Words like “affair,” “liaison” and “relationship” imply consent. And a child cannot consent to having sex with an adult (even if the predator is gentle and convinces the child that it’s “love”).
–The word “gay” here is wrong. For starters, it too implies consent. (Contrast, for example, the phrase “gay sex” with the phrase “heterosexual rape.”) It also suggests that the rabbi may be gay, which may or may not be the case. (Abuse, most therapists say, is about power, not about sexual orientation.) It suggests that the victim may be gay. And finally, it’s irrelevant (Why not say “rough sex” or “naked sex?” Because this has no bearing on the crime itself: a grown up sexually exploiting a youngster. )
And how about the word “accuser?” As I read these articles, the rabbi never denies that he “had sex with” a sixteen year old. So doesn’t the word “accuser” also minimize or mischaracterize what happened here.
Finally, there’s the question of emphasis. If a bank robber parked improperly during his crime, the headline would not read “Alleged criminal parked illegally and robbed bank.”
So why did some coverage stress Rabbi Starr’s alleged financial crimes and minimize his sexual crimes? Shouldn’t the headline have read something like “Rabbi is accused of child sex abuse and theft?”
It helps predators and hurts victims when we describe child sex crimes in ways that diminish or downplay these crimes.
http://www.snapnetwork.org/
Suits allege St. John’s Abbey monk abused 2 ‘cabin kids’
/in Minnesota, MN Post Window /by SOL ReformThe clergy sex abuse lawsuit against the Twin Cities archdiocese headed northwest Monday, when documents related to child abuse by five monks at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., were released and a lawsuit was filed to pry open the abbey’s files.
The letters and internal memos were among the thousands of pages of documents the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis provided to attorneys as part of a lawsuit.
They covered five monks previously identified as abusers — including the Rev. Richard Eckroth, who brought hundreds of students to an abbey cabin for overnight trips
.
The suits filed Monday in Stearns County District Court focus on Eckroth and seek the full release of the abbey’s files on abusers. Attorney Jeff Anderson said many of the archdiocese documents were heavily edited.
“A lot of material that should be made public hasn’t been,’’ Anderson said.
Still, the documents show that the abbey used the “geographic solution” with monks facing abuse charges, namely, they were moved to other churches, said Patrick Wall, a former monk at St. John’s who now is an investigator at Anderson’s law firm.
There were so many allegations against Eckroth, for example, that he was transferred to an island in the Bahamas in 1977, where he stayed for nearly 15 years, Wall said.
The two men who filed lawsuits against Eckroth Monday were among the “cabin kids” — boys Eckroth routinely brought to an abbey cabin for weekend trips, Wall said.
The lawsuit claims that Eckroth engaged in “unpermitted sexual misconduct” at the cabin with one of the plaintiffs from age 8 to age 10, and the other from age 10 to age 13.
How complaints were handled
The archdiocese files show how abuse complaints were addressed at the chancery, at least 15 years ago. In a 1997 memo, then-Archbishop Harry Flynn writes about a lawsuit filed against Cosmas Dahlheimer and Thomas Gillespie, which “has reached a key juncture at which we as an Archdiocese must consider whether it is our best interest to notify members” of the Church of St. Bernard in St. Paul and St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Stillwater — where the priests served.
“Normally, common sense would dictate that we withhold information from the public for at least two good reasons,” Flynn wrote. “First, the lawsuits may be settled outside of court and not become a matter of public record. And second, an early release of information gives the media a longer period of time to sensationalize the story.”
Flynn goes on to recommend, however, that he and the Rev. Kevin McDonough, then the chancery’s point person on abuse, prepare a memo that would be read at masses at the churches.
The documents posted on Anderson’s website discuss everything from payments for psychological therapy for victims to temporary assignments for priests.
The files were obtained in a lawsuit filed in Ramsey County last year by John Doe 1, who claims he was a sex abuse victim of former priest Thomas Adamson. The “nuisance” lawsuit against the archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona argues that the church put public safety at risk by allowing the clergy who abused children to continue to work. The nuisance provision allowed Anderson attorneys to depose Archbishop John Nienstedt in March.
The lawsuit filed in Stearns County makes similar charges, which allows attorneys to seek broad range of evidence.
Jean Hopfensperger • 612-673-4511
http://www.startribune.com/local/259842491.html
Lebovits Sentence: ‘A Mockery Of Justice’
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL ReformIn the wake of several recent sentences in cases involving the fervently Orthodox community, sex abuse survivors and activists are expressing concerns about the Brooklyn district attorney’s commitment to understanding and seeking substantive justice in that community.
A spokesman for the DA, Kenneth Thompson, defended the deal, telling The Jewish Week that “given that it was the defendant’s first arrest and [Rabbi Rosenberg’s] injuries were not permanent” — something Rabbi Rosenberg disputes, claiming he requires daily eye drops to deal with persistent discomfort from the attack — a felony conviction with no jail time was a just outcome. The sentence was comparable, the spokesman said, to what someone outside the community would receive for a similar offense. This explanation appears consistent with Thompson’s oft-repeated campaign promise of “equal justice” for all of Brooklyn.
The spokesman added that the deal in no way “takes away from” the work Rabbi Rosenberg does to encourage and help “victims to come forward” and report abuse allegations to secular authorities.
While members of the chasidic community conceded to The Jewish Week that a felony conviction can and typically does have serious ramifications for someone living outside their community, all emphasized that for someone like Schnitzler, who works in his family’s business and has the support of many in his community, a felony conviction without jail time is virtually meaningless. Indeed, community members and observers alike expressed the view that a misdemeanor conviction with even minimal jail time would have served as much more of a deterrent, thereby making victims and whistleblowers feel safer.
According to Asher Lipner, a psychologist who treats survivors of sexual abuse in the frum community, “[The fact] that the violent physical assault on a leading advocate [resulted in no jail time] left a deep impression on many victims. What I see in my practice is that it is, unfortunately, less likely than ever that victims of sexual abuse will report their assaults to the police. They are even more scared of reporting their abuse than ever.”
More recently, a man named Yoel Malik pleaded guilty to violating a 13-year-old boy in a hotel room and received a 60-day jail sentence plus probation. The DA’s office did not respond to a request from The Jewish Week seeking more information about the reasons for the deal.
Defense attorneys for another chasidic child molester, Baruch Lebovits, invoked the Malik sentence last week in court to argue for a more lenient sentence for their own client.
Lebovits had been convicted of eight counts of sex abuse after trial in 2010 and sentenced to 10 ½ to 32 years in prison, but saw his conviction reversed in 2012 because of a prosecutor’s error and a new trial ordered.
Lebovits’ release from prison came immediately after another man, Samuel Kellner, was indicted for bribing a witness to falsely testify against Lebovits and attempting to extort the Lebovits family for $400,000. The case against Kellner fell apart last summer, and earlier this year prosecutors dismissed it, citing the lack of credibility of the witnesses against Kellner: Lebovits’ own son, Meyer; Moshe Friedman, a politically powerful and connected Lebovits supporter; and a young man, MT, who prosecutors had strong reason to believe was a genuine Lebovits victim who was manipulated in recanting his allegations and falsely accusing Kellner.
Last Friday, Lebovits pleaded guilty to the eight counts. While the DA had offered him two to six years years in prison, Lebovits ultimately received a two-year sentence, which, after credit for time served and time off for good behavior, could end up being only several months.
While the judge made it clear that his decision was based not on the Malik disposition but his own research into average sentences for similar crimes and other factors in the case (the victim entered into a non-disclosed settlement agreement regarding the abuse and, according to statements made by the defense, expressed satisfaction with the length of time Lebovits had already served), the resolution of the case prompted strong reactions from advocates and survivors. Many of them were less concerned with the length of the sentence than what they perceive to be Lebovits supporters’ unpunished corruption of the criminal justice system.
“The outcome of this case continues to send a message to victims of such heinous crimes that politics and money trump justice,” Chaim Levin, an abuse survivor and vocal advocate who supported Thompson for DA, told The Jewish Week.
“A concerned father [Samuel Kellner] who was looking out for his son and for others was labeled as a criminal and charged as such, while the real danger, Mr. Lebovits, lived freely with unfettered access to children.
“Lebovits’ admission of guilt is a good thing,” Levin continued, “but it pales in comparison to the amount of damage he has inflicted on tens, if not hundreds, of innocent young children. Despite this, Lebovits will still be given a hero’s welcome home while his victims are pushed deeper and deeper into a bubble of fear and intimidation that demands silence.
“I sincerely hope that this isn’t a preview into what the tenure of the new district attorney will look like,” Levin added.
“Many of us campaigned through blood and sweat to bring real change for victims of such crimes in Brooklyn and we hope that Mr. Thompson isn’t headed in the direction of his predecessor, Mr. [Charles] Hynes.”
Rabbi Yosef Blau, the director of religious guidance at Yeshiva University’s rabbinical seminary, feels that “the [Lebovits] plea bargain is disappointing, though it is not the victory claimed by Lebovits’ supporters.”
“What is most troubling,” Rabbi Blau told The Jewish Week, “is how poorly the case was handled: the apparent collusion between elements in the [former] Brooklyn DA’s office and Lebovits’ attorneys, and [the fact that prosecutors have not pursued evidence] of witness intimidation and tampering [in the case].”
Sex abuse survivor and advocate Joel Engelman agrees.
“I think that even though [DA Thompson’s] hands may have been tied regarding the plea deal, there is a lot more that he must do regarding the crimes and mismanagement surrounding the case. The flagrant perjury, witness intimidation, blackmail and bribery involved in this case must be tended to if the office of the DA wants to maintain any credibility. The victims of Lebovits’ crimes deserve a lot more than this mockery of justice.”
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new-york/mockery-justice
Contra Costa DA, Concord police chief, others recommend reviewing child abuse reporting law
/in California /by SOL ReformBy Matthias Gafni Contra Costa Times
CONCORD — The Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office charged Woodside Elementary teacher Joseph Martin with 150 counts of molestation, but because of difficulties with the law, it was much trickier deciding whether to prosecute his bosses for possibly failing to report the alleged child abuse.
Prosecutors say their hands were tied because the “mandated reporting” law’s language creates a narrow one-year statute of limitations window that had closed.
Tina Jones, a Concord mother of two alleged victims, and others, including the district attorney and Concord police chief, say the law’s restrictive wording stymies prosecutions. They say it should be reviewed and, if necessary, changed.
“For many of the families in this, it’s just another level of victimization … to have no legal ramifications for (district employees) is so frustrating,” Jones said. “I think a one-year statute of limitations is ridiculous.”
School employees, among other people who work with children, are considered “mandated reporters” required by law to immediately report suspicions of child abuse. Failure to do so is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Critics, however, say the language in Penal Code section 11166 (c) makes prosecuting failures to report nearly impossible. The statute of limitations is one year, but — as is the case in many school abuse cases — law enforcement often does not find out until long ¿after the one-year expiration date for misdemeanor prosecution has passed.
In a confusing twist, the window can be extended until one year after law enforcement discovers the failure to report, but only if prosecutors can prove that the person who failed to notify police actually knew rather than suspected the abuse was taking place, a legal threshold that it extremely difficult to prove.
The steep burden of proof helped kill any chance at prosecuting Martin’s bosses at the Mt. Diablo school district for reporting failures. Martin, who has been charged with molesting 14 Woodside Elementary students, was placed on administrative leave in April 2013 and arrested in June. He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial is scheduled to begin May 27.
Contra Costa District Attorney Mark Peterson said the law should be reviewed and suggested it be changed.
His office considered filing charges against the principal and other employees for failures to report accusations made against Martin in 2006, when a teacher first alerted the principal that she walked in on Martin and a boy in a classroom hours after school let out, with their shoes off.
Other teachers also notified the principal of inappropriate behavior involving Martin. But Peterson said the statute of limitations restrictions rendered much of the case moot.
After making that decision, Peterson met with his county’s school superintendents to reinforce reporting responsibilities.
“Should they have reported to police? Yes,” Peterson said of Mt. Diablo administrators. “That’s where the difficulty lies, in the failure to go to police. Let them handle it; it’s what they’re trained to do.”
Concord police Chief Guy Swanger, whose agency investigated Martin and school administrators and nearly had to issue a search warrant to get district documents, said a review of the law “sounds reasonable.”
“In general, I think crimes involving children should have longer statute of limitations,” he said.
In March, Swanger testified in Sacramento on behalf of a bill aimed at strengthening reporting responsibilities.
“One of the most complicated cases to report is on one of their own, not when it’s parents or someone associated with the school,” Swanger said of education employees.
The law makes prosecutions extremely rare, however. In November 2012, a Santa Clara County jury convicted O.B. Whaley Elementary School Principal Lyn Vijayendran for failing to report a student’s graphic allegations of abuse by teacher Craig Chandler. It was the county’s first conviction for the misdemeanor.
In Vijayendran’s case, she was charged within a year of her inaction, leaving prosecutors a lower burden of proof to meet — that she had “reasonable suspicion” of abuse.
“They’re not easy cases,” said prosecutor Alison Filo, who tried the case. “The people are often likable … and jurors don’t want to convict people for negligence especially when there’s no criminal benefit.”
Bill Grimm, senior attorney at Oakland’s National Center for Youth Law, said he could see the challenges the district attorney faced in prosecuting the Concord principal.
“It does bother me that a person in her authority as principal, who is charged with protecting children on campuses, will not suffer consequences,” Grimm said, “… because the consequences of not reporting were unbelievably tragic.”
Contact Matthias Gafni at 925-952-5026. Follow him at Twitter.com/mgafni.
Under California Penal Code 11166 (c), the burden of proof changes for the misdemeanor if you want the one-year statute of limitations to begin when the crime is discovered by law enforcement. The threshold goes from proving a reporter “reasonably suspected” child abuse to if the abuse was “known” by the reporter. Here’s the code section:
(c) A mandated reporter who fails to report an incident of known or reasonably suspected child abuse or neglect as required by this section is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months confinement in a county jail or by a fine of one thousand dollars ($1,000) or by both that imprisonment and fine. If a mandated reporter intentionally conceals his or her failure to report an incident known by the mandated reporter to be abuse or severe neglect under this section, the failure to report is a continuing offense until an agency specified in Section 11165.9 discovers the offense.
Ohio Senate Considers Bill to Extend Rape SOL
/in Ohio /by SOL Reformby MARC KOVAC | CAPITAL BUREAU CHIEF Published:
Columbus — Victims of rape or sexual battery could pursue criminal charges against their attackers decades after incidents occur, under legislation being considered in the Ohio Senate.
Senate Bill 324 would extend the statute of limitations on such crimes if DNA analysis of evidence identifies the offender.
“Victims of sexual offenses are faced not only with a physical trauma, but they are left with lifelong emotional scars,” Sen. Shannon Jones (R-Springboro), a primary co-sponsor of the bill, said in testimony submitted to the Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee. “An immense amount of emotional strength is needed to relive a violent crime through court proceedings. It can take years for victims of sexual crimes to gather the courage necessary to pursue prosecution.”
Jones and co-sponsor Sen. Jim Hughes (R-Columbus) offered testimony May 20 before the lawmaker panel, where SB 324 had its first hearing.
Under current law, prosecution of rape or sexual battery crimes generally must begin within 20 years of an offense. Under SB 324, the timeframe would be extended in cases where DNA evidence pinpoints a particular perpetrator.
Hughes said at least 27 other states have comparable DNA exceptions already in place.
“Victims of rape and sexual battery experience a grave emotional, physical and psychological disturbance that, frankly, I can’t even fathom,” Hughes said. “It is no surprise that many victims need time to heal and come forward to friends and family before they can consider testifying before the public about their traumatic experience. SB 324 would … allow victims to take the time they may need to emotionally prepare themselves to speak about the crime.”
Marc Kovac is the Dix Capital Bureau Chief. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.
http://www.the-news-leader.com/latest%20headlines/2014/05/20/ohio-senate-considers-bill-to-extend-rape-statute-of-limitations
Rabbi allegedly misused funds to keep liaison with teen quiet, David Abel, Boston Globe
/in Massachusetts /by SOL ReformSTOUGHTON — After allegedly starting a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old male two years ago, Rabbi Barry Starr paid as much as $480,000 to buy the silence of a Milton man who professed to be the teenager’s brother and who threatened to expose the relationship, according to sworn statements released Monday in Stoughton District Court.
Starr, who developed a national reputation as a leader in Conservative Judaism in his 28 years as rabbi of Temple Israel of Sharon, allegedly transferred money from the rabbi’s discretionary fund to the alleged extortionist. That man — identified in court documents as Nicholas Zemeitus, 29, of Milton — told authorities the rabbi suggested altering checks written by elderly congregants to increase their value, according to documents that police filed in court while seeking search warrants.
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Among those approached by Rabbi Starr for money before he resigned was Arnie Freedman, the temple’s president. The rabbi told Freedman several weeks ago that he was in trouble and needed to borrow $50,000, according to the documents.
“Starr would not describe the trouble he was in,” Scott Leonard, a detective in the Sharon Police Department, wrote in his statement to the court.
Freedman pressed the rabbi for more details about why he needed the money. “Starr told Freedman that he [Starr] got involved in a romantic relationship with a younger man, who he [Starr] met online and that the man’s older brother was now extorting money from him,” Detective Leonard wrote. “Starr said the man was threatening to make details of the romantic relationship public.”
In an e-mailed statement Monday, an attorney representing Starr said that the rabbi had fallen victim to a “vicious extortioner.”
According to the court documents, Starr told Freedman that the alleged extortion by Zemeitus started shortly after the rabbi’s relationship began with the youth about two years ago. It was unclear how long the relationship lasted. The teenager’s name was not in the documents. The age of consent in Massachusetts is 16 — the teen’s age when the relationship allegedly started, according to the documents.
Zemeitus could not be reached by telephone Monday. A woman answered the door Monday night at the Milton residence listed in public records as Zemeitus’s home and said he would not be home until later in the evening. The woman declined further comment.
In a conversation he had with Detective Leonard and State Police Lieutenant David McSweeney, Zemeitus said he met the rabbi on Craigslist, a website known for enabling casual sexual encounters, according to the court documents. After exchanging e-mails, the two met at Starr’s home in Sharon, where he lived with his wife and two children.
Zemeitus told investigators he thought he was going to meet a 55-year-old woman and became upset when he arrived at the rabbi’s home and found a bearded man in his 60s.
“Zemeitus told us that he got angry as Starr lied about his true gender and appearance,” Leonard wrote. “Zemeitus told Starr that he was going to inform Starr’s wife about the meeting and that he would be outed.”
In response, the rabbi offered to pay Zemeitus $100 to keep the meeting quiet, Leonard wrote in his report.
It was not clear from the documents how the seemingly chance meeting supported Zemeitus’s story that he was acting on behalf of his younger brother. It remained unclear whether Zemeitus is in fact the teenager’s brother.
Zemeitus told investigators he met Starr several times over the past two years, including at Temple Israel, and that the money was exchanged to buy his silence. He told police he estimated receiving $200,000 from the rabbi; Starr told Freedman he paid Zemeitus an estimated $480,000.
Over the past month, said Zemeitus, Starr gave him eight checks belonging to the temple or the rabbi’s discretionary fund, which is often used to help congregants in need, and told Zemeitus to change the dollar amounts and deposit them into his bank account.
“Starr told him that the checks came from people from within the temple who were elderly or people who would not know that the check denominations were altered,” Leonard wrote.
Zemeitus allegedly added two zeros to the end of an $18 check — a spiritual number in Judaism that represents life or good luck — written by a congregant, according to court documents. Another $18 check left in the temple’s donation box by a woman was also altered and cashed, made to look as if it had been written for $1,800, as well, Leonard said.
Zemeitus also used one of the women’s checking account numbers to pay several bills, including $148.54 to T-Mobile, $540.63 to Progressive Direct Insurance, and $537.32 to NStar, Leonard wrote.
The utility account was in the name of Alexa Anderson, who lives at the same address as Zemeitus.
“Zemeitus told us that Starr had made those payments for him and Anderson,” Leonard wrote.
Officials at the Norfolk district attorney’s office declined to comment.
Thomas Hoopes, a Boston attorney representing Starr, described his 64-year-old client as a victim.
“The rabbi, his family, and his community have been the victims of a vicious extortioner,” he wrote in an e-mail. “The case is as simple and as awful as that.”
He added: “Law enforcement will hopefully determine the truth of any story Zemeitus has made up and assess any other allegations.”
Last week, Starr was also accused of failing to repay a $50,000 loan he received from Morris Kesselman, an 87-year-old congregant who secured a lien on the rabbi’s home.
In a lawsuit filed in Stoughton District Court, Kesselman, a Holocaust survivor, said Starr came to his house in Sharon last fall and pleaded for the money, saying he had “a severe personal problem.”
This month, hundreds of members of the Conservative temple received a letter from the rabbi, in which he acknowledged his wrongdoing. “Sometimes people who try to be good people do things that are wrong, hurtful, and shameful,” wrote Starr.
Congregants who attended a meeting last week were still struggling to comprehend the allegations and sudden resignation of someone they have looked up to for so long.
In a statement, Freedman, the temple’s president, said the congregation “has been profoundly troubled and upset by these events.”
“We are cooperating fully with law enforcement officials,” he said. “At the same time, we are endeavoring to respect the rabbi’s request for privacy. We have come together as a community, united in our faith in God and our shared sense of sadness.”
Related coverage:
• Rabbi at Sharon temple faces suit
• Longtime Sharon rabbi abruptly resigns
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/05/19/rabbi/SxyzKXBoTjPFopJFw2Ow3J/story.html