10/05/2012 - Myclipp

The New York Times/ - Politics, Sex, 11 de Maio de 2012
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Constitutional Law)
For Ultra-Orthodox in Abuse Cases,
Prosecutor Has Different Rules
An influential rabbi came last summer to the Brooklyn
district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, with a message: his
ultra-Orthodox advocacy group was instructing
adherent Jews that they could report allegations of
child sexual abuse to district attorneys or the police
only if a rabbi first determined that the suspicions were
credible.The pronouncement was a blunt challenge to
Mr. Hynes’s authority. But the district attorney
“expressed no opposition or objection,” the rabbi,
Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, recalled. In fact, when Mr.
Hynes held a Hanukkah party at his office in
December, he invited many ultra-Orthodox rabbis
affiliated with the advocacy group, Agudath Israel of
America. He even chose Rabbi Zwiebel, the group’s
executive vice president, as keynote speaker at the
party. Mr. Hynes has won election six times as district
attorney thanks in part to support from ultra-Orthodox
rabbis, who lead growing communities in
neighborhoods like Borough Park and Crown Heights.
But in recent years, as allegations of child sexual
abuse have shaken the ultra-Orthodox Jewish
community in Brooklyn, victims’ rights groups have
expressed concern that he is not vigorously pursuing
these cases because of his deep ties to the rabbis.
Many of the rabbis consider sexual abuse accusations
to be community matters best handled by rabbinical
authorities, who often do not report their conclusions to
the police. In 2009, as criticism of his record mounted,
Mr. Hynes set up a program to reach out to
ultra-Orthodox victims of child sexual abuse. Called
Kol Tzedek (Voice of Justice in Hebrew), the program
is intended to “ensure safety in the community and to
fully support those affected by abuse,” his office said.
In recent months, Mr. Hynes and his aides have said
the program has contributed to an effective crackdown
on child sexual abuse among ultra-Orthodox Jews,
saying it had led to 95 arrests involving more than 120
victims. But Mr. Hynes has taken the highly unusual
step of declining to publicize the names of defendants
prosecuted under the program — even those
convicted. At the same time, he continues to publicize
allegations of child sexual abuse against defendants
who are not ultra-Orthodox Jews. This policy of
shielding defendants’ names because of their religious
status is not followed by the other four district
attorneys in New York City, and has rarely, if ever,
been adopted by prosecutors around the country.
Some sex-crime experts and former prosecutors said
the policy contributed to a culture of secrecy in
ultra-Orthodox communities, which made it harder to
curb sexual abuse. Mr. Hynes, through a spokesman,
said he would not publicize information about specific
accusations because he did not want to discourage
victims from coming forward. But at least one
ultra-Orthodox rabbi acknowledged asking him not to
publicize these cases and said other rabbis had as
well. The number of sexual abuse cases involving
children being prosecuted by Mr. Hynes’s office is up
sharply. But an examination by The New York Times
shows that some of Mr. Hynes’s claims about the Kol
Tzedek program appear to be inflated. Through an
extensive search of court and other public records,
The Times determined the names of suspects and
other details in 47 of the 95 cases attributed to the Kol
Tzedek program. More than half of the 47 seemed to
have little to do with the program, according to the
court records and interviews. Some did not involve
ultra-Orthodox victims, which the program is
specifically intended to help. More than one-third
involved arrests before the program began, as early as
2007. Many came in through standard reporting
channels, like calls to the police. While the 47 cases
did include charges against camp counselors, yeshiva
teachers and rabbis, they also included cases like that
of a Borough Park cafe owner who was convicted of
molesting a female Hispanic immigrant who worked for
him. At least three others were of ultra-Orthodox
defendants who groped women on public
transportation, including one Borough Park resident
accused of placing his penis on a woman’s shoulder.
The woman immediately called the transit police.Jo
Craven McGinty, Griff Palmer and Tom Torok
contributed reporting. This article has been revised to
reflect the following correction:Correction: May 11,
2012
A previous version of this article misspelled the
surname of the executive vice president of Agudath
Israel of America as Zweibel. Mr. Hynes would not be
interviewed for this article. He has never publicly
opposed the ultra-Orthodox Jewish position that a
rabbi must first determine that an accusation of child
sexual abuse is valid before the authorities are
notified.His aides acknowledged that Rabbi Zwiebel
informed him about Agudath’s position last summer.
“D.A. Hynes did meet with Zwiebel and told him he
wouldn’t interfere with someone’s decision to consult
with his or her rabbi about allegations of sexual abuse,
but would expect that these allegations of criminal
conduct be reported to the appropriate law
enforcement authorities,” said Jerry Schmetterer, a
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