NEW JERSEY
Boston.com
By WAYNE PARRY / Associated Press / October 17, 2013
TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) — A former New Jersey yeshiva teacher who claimed he was pressured by his Orthodox Jewish community into admitting to sexually assaulting a boy was sentenced Thursday night to nearly 13 years in prison after a judge refused to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea.
Yosef Kolko, 39, had said in court papers that members of the Lakewood community carried out an unrelenting campaign to get him to plead guilty and to spare the community negative publicity. He claims they showed him YouTube videos ‘‘of how inmates kill people in jail for being molesters in order to pressure me into taking a plea and avoiding trial.’’
‘‘If not for the extreme pressure by members of my community, I would not have pled guilty as charged,’’ he said. ‘‘I reject plea bargains offered by the state because I am innocent of the crimes alleged.’’
But Superior Court Judge Francis Hodgson Jr. said Kolko ‘‘set out before he even pleaded guilty to game the system,’’ seeing an opportunity ‘‘to get a do-over’’ of a trial that was not going well for him.’’
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