CONNECTICUT
New Haven Independent
by CHRISTOPHER PEAK | May 12, 2017
Hartford — Speaking publicly for the first time about sexual abuse allegations that have ripped apart the Orthodox Jewish community he built in New Haven, Rabbi Daniel Greer denied under oath ever having counseled a teenaged yeshiva student named Eliyahu Mirlis about spiritual matters, let alone having repeatedly assaulted him.
Then, under further questioning, Greer refused to say whether he took Mirlis to motels overnight, showed him porn, plied him with alcohol, molested him in the bedroom where he sleeps with his wife and fondled him at several other rental properties he controls throughout the Edgewood neighborhood.
“Did you force Eli Mirlis to have sex with you when he was a child?” Antonio Ponvert, Mirlis’s attorney, questioned after Greer took the stand here Thursday in a civil lawsuit here in U.S. District Court.
“I advise Mr. Greer to invoke his privilege” — the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination — David Grudberg, one of the rabbi’s three defense attorneys, interrupted.
“I invoke the right to privilege,” Greer said. Ponvert moved on to the next allegation.
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