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	Trials & Tribulations: Feds Could Put Ex-Kj Rabbi in Prison for Years By Oliver Mackson Times Herald-Record October 10, 2008 http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081010/COMM/810100357/-1/NEWS The feds have much more than just a five-count indictment against Rabbi Israel Weingarten. They've got a pile of court papers that include allegations of misdeeds done to his fellow Satmar Hasidim in Kiryas Joel years before the indictment was unsealed Monday. And that's why two federal judges have ordered Weingarten to be held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, after FBI agents had to kick down two doors to arrest the barricaded Weingarten at his home in Monsey Monday morning. Weingarten is accused of taking a teenage relative overseas for the purpose of sexually abusing her in 1997. A federal grand jury indicted him in Brooklyn Aug. 18 on five charges of traveling across U.S. borders and overseas to have sex with the relative. Brooklyn also has a large Satmar community, and Weingarten once taught in a private religious school there. Weingarten's accuser came forward in 2003, when she was 22, according to court papers. She told the FBI that Weingarten began abusing her when she was 9, according to a memo prepared by federal prosecutors Rachel Nash and Andrea Goldbarg to support their request for Weingarten to be held without bail. Although Weingarten was arrested in Monsey, the feds say that he piled up the frequent-flier miles, moving among Satmar communities in Belgium, Israel and England to avoid being confronted by members of his family and his community. Prosecutors wanted him held without bail because the indictment gives him a major incentive to beat feet. If he's convicted, the feds contend that sentencing guidelines would put him in prison for at least 14 years. The feds say that in 2003, when Weingarten lived in Kiryas Joel, he and some of his friends "forcibly removed the Kiryas Joel public safety director from the Weingarten home when he attempted to investigate a tip that one of Weingarten's daughters (not the sexual-abuse victim) was screaming in pain." Court papers also say that when Weingarten's sister-in-law filed assault charges against him in 2002, "she received threatening phone calls telling her that she would be arrested unless she dropped the charges." The papers also say he branded his accuser a "fantasizer," so that her complaints would be taken as childish fantasies. The prosecutors added that, "in Belgium, he ran his own Satmar school, and in the United States in 2002, he was employed by the Yeshiva and Mesivta Torah Temimah, an elementary and secondary school in Brooklyn. Unless he is detained, it will be difficult to prevent him from seeking such employment, because the Satmar schools do not operate under government control." Ken Gribetz, the former Rockland County district attorney who represented Weingarten during an arraignment Monday, was unable to convince U.S. Magistrate Judge Joan Azrack to spring Weingarten on an electronic monitoring bracelet. Gribetz said that Family Court proceedings against Weingarten were dismissed, and he flatly denied the sexual abuse allegations. "Essentially, our contention is that he's innocent of all these charges, that the matter had been originally in Orange County Family Court, that the matter was transferred to Rockland and that Child Protective Services found that the allegations were unfounded," Gribetz said Wednesday. "I've spoken to six of his children, and they absolutely adore their father. This is the result of a very, very bitter divorce that's been litigated on three continents — in Israel, Belgium and the United States." The feds say that Weingarten didn't exactly cooperate with Child Protective Services, hiding his children and failing to produce them for a week. Caseworkers had to call police in Orange, Rockland and Westchester counties before they finally tracked down the children, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge John Gleeson denied a request for Weingarten to be moved from confinement in Brooklyn to the federal prison in Otisville. But Gleeson also said that the issue of where Weingarten is held, and whether he should be freed on bond, could be revisited when Weingarten makes his next federal court appearance in Brooklyn, at 2 p.m. Tuesday. Trials & Tribulations is the Times Herald-Record's weekly roundup of news, updates and anecdotes about local courts and criminal justice. Tips and threats are welcome. Call Oliver Mackson at 346-3130 or e-mail omackson@th-record.com .
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