Chasidic Rabbi, Accused Sex Abuser Arrested in L.A.

The Jewish Week
October 30, 2013

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/national-news/chasidic-rabbi-accused-sex-abuser-arrested-la

Police in Beverly Hills yesterday arrested Rabbi Mendel Tevel, a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Chasidic community who is accused of committing acts of sexual abuse on minors in New York over a 20-year-period beginning in the mid-1990s, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal reported.

According to the Journal, Rabbi Tevel, who has worked at the JEM youth center in Los Angeles, was taken into custody at the center, and will be extradited back here to face charges. The paper reported in August that the rabbi, who is about 30 years old, had “performed acts that included spanking on bare skin, to sexually suggestive rubbing,” while he earlier lived in Brooklyn.

The Journal article cited charges by “four men” whose ages ranged “from ages 6 to 14 at the time of the alleged abuse.