CONNECTICUT
New Haven Independent
by CHRISTOPHER PEAK | May 18, 2017
Hartford — A federal jury Thursday ordered prominent Rabbi Daniel Greer and his Elm Street yeshiva to pay a former student $15 million in compensatory damages because the rabbi raped and repeatedly abused him 15 years ago.
The jury awarded an additional $5 million in punitive damages, to pay the lawyers.
In adjudicating a civil lawsuit brought by Eliyahu Mirlis, a former high school student at the Yeshiva of New Haven, the jury deliberated in U.S. District Court here for 12 hours over two days before coming to its unanimous decision.
The eight jurors slapped Greer with the eight-figure bill for the emotional suffering he caused Mirlis by assaulting and battering the boy over a three-year period, from his sophomore to senior years at the high school. The panel calculated the total after also concluding that Greer and the yeshiva had shown recklessness and intentional infliction of emotional distress and the school separately had displayed negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
That sum was less than half of the $38 million that the plaintiff’s attorney, Antonio Ponvert III, had requested.
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