NEW YORK
New York Daily Nes
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
The conviction of a prominent member of Brooklyn’s Satmar Hasidic community on 59 counts of sexually abusing a schoolgirl stands as an important use of the criminal law in a defiantly insular culture.
A jury credited her description of Nechemya Weberman as a predator, and it rejected his claim that she had accused him in revenge for a scheme to have her boyfriend charged with statutory rape.
Based on the evidence, the finding appeared a well-justified conclusion for which punishment must, and will, be severe. That said, had the jury acquitted Weberman, the case would still have been a landmark. On its own, trying him established that the law will be equally and fairly applied to all.
Weberman’s young victim showed enormous courage in pursuing the prosecution.
When she was but 12, teachers and administrators at her Orthodox Jewish school became concerned that she had grown rebellious, a quality not surprising for her age but deemed in her world to require remediation. School leaders insisted her parents send the girl to Weberman, who was highly regarded as a youth counselor although he had no secular credentials as a counselor or therapist.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.