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Haredi Child Molester Yosef Kolko’s Motion to Withdraw His Guilty Plea to Be Heard Today

By Shmarya Rosenberg
Failed Messiah
October 17, 2013

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2013/10/haredi-child-molester-yosef-kolkos-motion-to-withdraw-his-guilty-plea-to-be-heard-today-567.html

Admitted haredi child molester Rabbi Yosef Kolko reportedly says Lakewood haredi rabbis and haredi community leaders forced him to plead guilty to a crime he did not commit in order to save the Lakewood haredi community – and prominent haredi rabbis – from scrutiny of the haredi community’s actions continuing his trial would have brought.

Rabbi Yosef Kolko

Admitted haredi child molester Rabbi Yosef Kolko reportedly says Lakewood haredi rabbis and haredi community leaders forced him to plead guilty to a crime he did not commit in order to save the Lakewood haredi community – and prominent haredi rabbis – from scrutiny of the haredi community’s actions continuing his trial would have brought.

The 39-year-old Kolko, the nephew of notorious haredi child molester Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, made that claim in a motion filed with the court to withdraw his guilty plea, the Asbury Park Press reported.

He says one man called him to several meetings – some of which were held in the presence of haredi leader Rabbi Yisroel Belsky, the rosh yeshiva (dean) of Yeshiva Torah Vodaas in Brooklyn – to convince him to accept a plea bargain. That same haredi man also ordered Kolko to the home of a Lakewood rabbi, where he showed him YouTube videos of “how inmates kill people in jail for being molesters in order to pressure me into taking a plea and avoid trial,” Kolko’s court filing claims.

That filing also says that another haredi rabbi spoke to one of Kolko’s defense witnesses and told him that Kolko should take a plea bargain, and that another similar call was made.

Kolko also claims five haredim visited his home at 2:00 am on the day his trial was to resume after a break to convince him to pleaded guilty.

Exhausted from the late night visit, Kolko claims he buckled to the pressure and pleaded guilty that day to aggravated sexual assault, attempted aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child. He also claims he told his brother just before doing so that he was pleading guilty against his will.

Five letters from haredim claiming that Kolko was pressured into pleading guilty – including one from Belsky and one from Kolo’s brother Shabsi – were submitted with Kolko’s filing. Belsky’s letter reportedly also say that he had advised Kolko to plead guilty.

“The reasons were convincing enough to make those who believed in his innocence fearful of the sensationalism attached to the affair and other weighty considerations,” Belsky reportedly wrote.

Belsky was partially responsible for the harassment of the victim and his family by labeling them mosrim (informers). One haredi man was charged with witness tampering after he allegedly mounted a telephone intimidation campaign to try to force the family to drop the charges. The family was ostracized by the Lakewood haredi community and was forced to moved out of state.

Senior Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Laura Pierro rejected Kolko’s claims as irrelevant.

Kolko had already been considering pleading guilty because the trial testimony was going against him. He only pleaded guilty after finding out that prosecutors had been contacted by an attorney representing two people who were also claiming that Kolko sexually abused them. Kolko also did not enter a guilty plea until after he spoke with Belsky to get his permission.

Kolko’s motion to withdraw will be taken up by the court at 1:30 p.m. today.

If his bid to withdraw his guilty plea fails, Kolko could be sentenced as early as today. He faces up to 40 years in prison, although Superior Court Judge Francis R. Hodgson had previously said he might cap the sentence at 15 years.

Kolko’s male victim was only 11-years-old when the abuse began in 2008.

 

 

 

 

 




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