NEW YORK
New York Post
From By JOSH SAUL
Last Updated: 7:38 PM, November 26, 2012
The trial of a prominent Brooklyn rabbi accused of sexually abusing a young girl began in Brooklyn Supreme Court today with a focus on the strict rules of ultra-Orthodox Judaism.
Williamsburg rabbi Nechemya Weberman is charged with molesting a 12-year-old girl over three years after her parents sent her to him for counseling.
“It doesn’t sound like modern Brooklyn, it sounds like the Salem witch trials,” said assistant district attorney Kevin O’Donnell, describing how the alleged victim’s parents sent her to Weberman after she was chastised and shunned from the Satmar Hasidic community because she questioned authority and acted immodestly.
O’Donnell alleged that Weberman fondled the young girl in his office and forced her to perform oral sex on him, “Over and over again.”
Defense attorney George Farkas called the jury’s attention to the seeming strangeness to outsiders of Hasidic Judaism, warning jurors not to judge Weberman on his adherence to religious dictum.
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