NEW JERSEY
Failed Messiah
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Admitted haredi child molester Rabbi Yosef Kolko reportedly says Lakewood haredi rabbis and haredi community leaders forced him to plead guilty to a crime he did not commit in order to save the Lakewood haredi community – and prominent haredi rabbis – from scrutiny of the haredi community’s actions continuing his trial would have brought.
The 39-year-old Kolko, the nephew of notorious haredi child molester Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, made that claim in a motion filed with the court to withdraw his guilty plea, the Asbury Park Press reported.
He says one man called him to several meetings – some of which were held in the presence of haredi leader Rabbi Yisroel Belsky, the rosh yeshiva (dean) of Yeshiva Torah Vodaas in Brooklyn – to convince him to accept a plea bargain. That same haredi man also ordered Kolko to the home of a Lakewood rabbi, where he showed him YouTube videos of “how inmates kill people in jail for being molesters in order to pressure me into taking a plea and avoid trial,” Kolko’s court filing claims.
That filing also says that another haredi rabbi spoke to one of Kolko’s defense witnesses and told him that Kolko should take a plea bargain, and that another similar call was made.
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