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  Court Dismisses Sex Suit against Monsey Rabbi

The Jewish Week

July 10, 2008

http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c352_a12804/News/Briefs.html

New York’s top court has rejected the claim of a Manhattan woman that Rabbi Mordechai Tendler of Ramapo had so dominated her that she agreed to have sex with him so she could find a husband.

The woman, Adina Marmelstein, alleged in her civil suit that the rabbi breached his fiduciary responsibility and intentionally inflicted emotional distress. She alleged that he told her that her “only hope” of meeting a man was to have sex with him to “open her up to the world” and become more attractive to men. She sued him in 2005 after their affair of more than three years ended, she said. Rabbi Tendler, 53, denied having a sexual relationship with her.

Judge Victoria Graffeo, who wrote the unanimous opinion, said Marmelstein had demonstrated that she was deceived by Rabbi Tendler but not that she had lost the ability to make her own decisions.

“A congregant must set forth facts and circumstances in the complaint demonstrating that the congregant became uniquely vulnerable and incapable of self-protection regarding the matter at issue,” she wrote.

 
 

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