Prominent Rabbi Accused of Secretly Videotaping More Than 150 Women As They Prepared for Ritual Bath

By Kate Pickles
Daily Mail
February 13, 2015

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2951483/Rabbi-accused-secretly-videotaping-150-women.html

A rabbi has been accused of secretly videotaping more than 150 nude women at a Jewish ritual bath.

Barry Freundel was charged with voyeurism in October last year in relation to recordings of six women while he was at Kesher Israel Congregation in Georgetown. He denies the charges.

Following an investigation, it has been claimed Freundel had filmed 152 women.

During a meeting with victims Wednesday evening at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, prosecutors discussed the number of victims revealed by an investigation along with the benefits of a plea deal in the case.

Voyeurism: Rabbi Barry Freundel is accused of secretly filming women as they showered and changed at the Keshre Israel Congregation

The meeting was closed to the press but three people who attended told The Associated Press what was discussed.

Prosecutors told victims, their spouses and some lawyers representing them that an investigation had determined Freundel had filmed 152 women.

They said 88 of the women had been filmed within the last three years. They said another 64 were filmed going back to 2009, though a statute of limitations bars prosecutors from charging Freundel with voyeurism based on those recordings.

A mikvah is used most frequently by people converting to Judaism and by observant Jewish women seven days after the end of their menstrual cycle as a way of becoming closer to God.

Freundel faces up to six years in prison if convicted.

Freundel, 63, was a rabbi at the Kesher Israel synagogue in Washington for over 25 years and a prominent orthodox rabbi before his arrest on voyeurism charges.

Court documents accuse him of setting up a recording device disguised as a digital clock radio in the changing and showering area of The National Capital Mikvah, a ritual cleansing bath affiliated with Kesher Israel that opened in 2005.

Synagogue: Freundel is accused of setting up a recording device disguised as a digital clock radio to film 152 women as they changed and showered at Jewish ritual bath

Police arrested Freundel on October 14 after a person associated with the mikvah discovered the hidden camera. They initially found videos of six women entering and exiting a mikvah shower, and court documents say Freundel appears on film setting up the recording device.

A search of his home turned up other media storage devices, and he has since been fired from the synagogue.

The next hearing in the case is February 19.