NEW YORK
Wall Street Journal

By Pervaiz Shallwani

A prominent ultra-Orthodox Jewish counselor was sentenced to 103 years in prison in connection with the sexual abuse of a teenage girl in the insular Brooklyn community.

Nechemya Weberman, 54 years old, was found guilty in December on 59 counts of sexual abuse and child endangerment, the most serious that he sexually abused the young woman for three years beginning when she was 12.

The victim, now 18, spoke for five minutes Tuesday, at times crying as she read from a prepared statement.

She described herself as “a sad girl who wanted to live a normal life but instead was being victimized by a 50-year-old man who forced her to perform sickening acts again and again.”