MASSACHUSETTS
Wicked Local Sharon
By Chris Burrell
The Patriot Ledger
Posted May. 12, 2015
DEDHAM — A 30-year-old Quincy man pleaded innocent Tuesday afternoon in Norfolk Superior Court to charges that he extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a well-known rabbi in Sharon.
Nicholas Zemeitus, of Willard Street in Quincy, was arrested Monday days after a grand jury indicted him for allegedly blackmailing the rabbi.
Rabbi Barry Starr resigned last year as rabbi at Temple Israel of Sharon. He now faces charges of embezzlement and larceny from the synagogue and will be arraigned at a later date.
In court documents unsealed Tuesday, prosecutors said that Zemeitus was living in Milton in 2011 when he first threatened to expose Starr’s alleged sexual relationship with a teenage boy and demanded money to keep silent. Starr was instructed to leave his first payment to Zemeitus in a car parked at the South Shore Plaza in Braintree, according to the office of Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey.
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