UNITED STATES
Frum Follies
A lawsuit was filed in a US federal court on Monday August 4th by five families who registered their daughters to attend the post-HS, Jerusalem-based, ultra-orthodox but non-Hassidic seminaries operated at the time by Elimelech Meisels. Meisels has since confessed to sexually abusing students to a Chicago rabbinical court (aka, Special Beis Din, Chicago Beis Din, or CBD).
The parents of the prospective students paid hefty deposits toward the 2014-2015 tuition of over $20,000. The CBD revealed the abuse and recommended not sending students to these seminaries in a ruling released on July 10. The CBD subsequently declared on July 30th:
We stand by our July 10 statement that we do not recommend prospective students attend these seminaries, and also note, based on evidence including testimony by victims and staff and admissions by Elimelech Meisels, our conclusion that certain senior staff members failed in their responsibilities toward students.
The CBD issued that statement because an Israeli Beit Din (IBD) attempted to whitewash the seminaries and declare they were sold, Meisels was out, all the other staff were good and no other seminary was allowed to accept students who were registered with Meisels.
The lawsuit was reported yesterday in Court House News, They quote from the suit:
From approximately 2004 until the present date, defendant Elimelech Meisels engaged in a fraudulent and unlawful scheme to induce Orthodox Jewish parents from across the United States to send their daughters to various seminaries in Israel that he controlled under the guise of educational and spiritual development,” the complaint states. “In truth, defendant Meisels’ true aim was to fraudulently and unlawfully take thousands of dollars from each of these parents and to induce these girls, by telephone, mail, wire and other means, to travel thousands of miles outside the United States and away from their parents for the purpose of sexually assaulting these vulnerable young girls……
Defendant Meisels, like many other sexual predators, preyed on the vulnerable. He did this by developing mentor-mentee relationships with girls and exploiting these relationships to lure the girls into late night coffee meetings and other private settings and then sexually assaulted them.
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