Florida Man Accuses Rabbi Joel Kolko of Sexual Abuse under Child Victims Act

By Reuven Fenton and Susan Edelman
New York Post
August 18, 2019

https://nypost.com/2019/08/16/florida-man-accuses-rabbi-joel-kolko-of-sexual-abuse-under-child-victims-act/

A Florida man who says he was sexually abused decades ago by two Brooklyn rabbis — one of them accused serial molester Rabbi Joel Kolko — has filed suit under New York’s new Child Victims Act.

Alleged victim Baruch Sandhaus claims the rabbis “would inappropriately touch” his private parts on various occasions between 1978 and 1980, when he was a student at Yeshiva Torah Temimah in Midwood, according to papers filed Friday in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

“Kolko and [Rabbi Joel] Falk exploited their positions of power and trust … with easy access to the then [underage] plaintiff in committing heinous acts of sexual abuse,” the lawsuit contends.

Prior to the passage of the act, which went into effect Wednesday, New York’s statute of limitations resulted in the dismissal of a suit Sandhaus filed in 2006.

The new law opens up a so-called “look-back window” of one year, allowing victims of any age to seek civil action against their abusers, no matter how long ago the alleged abuse happened.

Sandhaus, 52, now a businessman in Miami, has long advocated for victims of child sexual abuse in the insular Orthodox community.

Two younger former students, also victims of Kolko and still within the statute, also sued the yeshiva in 2006 and 2007. The yeshiva settled with both youths for $2.1 million in 2016.

Kolko took a controversial plea deal from then-Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes in 2012. He pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of child endangerment and did not have to go to jail or register as a sex offender.

Neither Kolko nor Falk immediately returned calls for comment.