NEW YORK
The New York Times
By MICHAEL POWELL
March 10, 2014
To walk the streets free of the shadow of indictment, to hear a Brooklyn prosecutor last Friday describe the extortion case against him as a tree rotted through, Samuel Kellner might be expected to speak of vindication and hope.
Except this voluble, gray-bearded man cannot summon happiness.
Five years ago, Mr. Kellner, a 52-year-old Hasidic Jew, chose to step off a cultural cliff. He spoke out about the sexual abuse of his 16-year-old son by a prominent Hasidic cantor. And he helped a police detective ferret out other victims of this cantor, whose connections ran to the most powerful reaches of the Satmar community.
Retribution became daily fare for Mr. Kellner. His rabbi denounced him as a traitor. Yeshivas locked out his sons. He pawned his silverware.
Then the former Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, who had proved a most considerate ally of Hasidic leaders, drove a stake into Mr. Kellner’s heart. After gaining a conviction of the cantor, Baruch Lebovits, Brooklyn prosecutors turned around and indicted Mr. Kellner. Basing their case on the questionable testimony of a prominent Satmar supporter of the cantor, they accused Mr. Kellner of trying to shake down Mr. Lebovits.
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