NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward
By Paul Berger
Published October 31, 2011, issue of November 04, 2011.
One of the most high-profile convictions of an ultra-Orthodox rabbi for sexual abuse in recent times may be in danger of reversal, according to new disclosures in court records obtained by the Forward.
When Baruch Lebovits was sentenced last year to up to 32 years in jail, victims’ rights advocates hailed it as a turning point in the battle against sexual abuse in the insular Orthodox community.
“From now on,” Joseph Diangello, an abuse victim turned advocate, told The Jewish Star at the time, “victims of sexual abuse in the Hasidic community that have no voice with the people that are supposed to protect them will have a voice in the court of law.”
There was a sense that the wall of silence that had protected abusers in the ultra-Orthodox community for so long was finally crumbling.
But Lebovits’s 2010 conviction is now unraveling amid allegations of perjury, conspiracy and extortion.
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