Cardinal’s Aide - Guilty in Abuse Case

NYTimes   Msgr. William J. Lynn, a former cardinal’s aide, was found guilty Friday of endangering children, becoming the first senior official of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States convicted of covering up sexual abuses by priests under his supervision.

The single guilty verdict was widely seen as a victory for the district attorney’s office, which has been investigating the archdiocese aggressively since 2002, and it was hailed by victim advocates who have argued for years that senior church officials should be held accountable for concealing evidence and transferring predatory priests to unwary parishes.

The trial sent a sobering message to church officials and others overseeing children around the country. “I think that bishops and chancery officials understand that they will no longer get a pass on these types of crimes,” said Nicholas P. Cafardi, a professor of law at Duquesne University, a canon lawyer and frequent church adviser. “Priests who sexually abuse youngsters and the chancery officials who enabled it can expect criminal prosecution.”

Jerry Sandusky - Convicted on 45 abuse charges

Time Magazine    Jerry Sandusky, the 68-year-old former assistant coach of Penn State’s football team, was convicted Friday evening on 45 out of 48 counts of sexual abuse. According to the Associated Press, Sandusky stood expressionless in the Bellefonte, Pa. courtroom as the jury, seven women and five men, read the verdict. He was convicted of 25 felonies and 14 first degree felonies and faces 442 years in prison. Following sentencing in three months, he will likely spend the remainder of his life behind bars.

Along with Sandusky, the scandal implicated former Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz and former athletic director Tim Curley, both of whom were allegedly informed about the abuse but failed to investigate it properly. Schultz, as the administrative head of the Penn State campus police department, would have had the power to take criminal action against Sandusky. He and Curley are currently facing charges of perjury and failure to report. Both have denied all wrongdoing.

Sandusky’s misdeeds also ruined the careers of Penn State President Graham Spanier, who was forced out by the Board of Trustees, and storied Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, the winningest coach in major college football and the college town’s biggest hero, who was fired. Riots broke out on the campus of 45,000 students after the decision was handed down to remove the coach. Paterno, 85, died of lung cancer on January 22, 2012, just two months after he was removed from the team.

R' Avrahom Meir Weiss - bitul seruv

Weiss

Men have priority over women - even for lost objects

[updated with Mishna] Rav Sternbuch(Teshuvos v’Hanhagos 4:217): In the Mishna at the end of Horios it is taught, A man take priority over a woman in regard to returning lost objects. The reason for this is because the man has a greater obligation to do mitzvos than a woman. We also find in Shulchan Aruch concerning tzedaka that a man comes before a woman. This is very strange. I can understand that a Torah scholar takes precedence to a woman because it is showing respect for the Torah. However there is no obligation to honor every man because of the mitzvos that he fulfills. I can understand that in saving of life that a man comes before a woman because he can serve G‑d more since he has much more mitvos and thus is sanctified more. However what does that have to do with returning him his lost objects before returning a woman her lost objects – there simply isn’t a general obligation of honoring each man? I could not find this din in the Shulcha Aruch or the Rambam, but it is explicit and clear in the Mishna. This question requires additional study. Perhaps you can answer that since the man is obligated in more mitzvos, when you give priority to the man you show with this the importance of mitzvos. Therefore even though there is no requirement to honor him, but in a situation where you have both a man a woman that you need to returnsomething, we give priority to him because he is obligated in more mitzvos. With this we cherish and show the importance of mitzvos. Therefore the Sages required in such a case to give preference to the man. However this still requires clarification.
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Horious(13a): Mishna: A man takes precedence over a woman in life and death matters and the return of lost objects [ because of greater holiness resulting from having more mitzvos]. A woman takes precedence over a man regarding being clothed [because she suffers more from embarrassment and shame of being naked] and redemption from captivity. If they are both faced with rape then a man takes precedence over a woman [because rape is unnatural for a man and thus more degrading than for a woman].

4 arrested for $500k bribe & intimidation in Weberman case

NYTimes  The Brooklyn distt attorney, facing an avalanche of complaints about his handling of sexual abuse allegations in the ultra-Orthodox community, on Thursday charged four men with attempting to silence an accuser by offering her and her boyfriend a $500,000 bribe, and threatening her boyfriend’s business. 

The district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, alleged that the men were part of an effort by the community to protect a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community, Nechemya Weberman, who has been accused of 88 counts of sexual misconduct, including oral sex with a child younger than 13 years old. The charges all involve a single victim, a young woman who was referred by her school to get counseling by Mr. Weberman, and then alleges she was abused by him during therapy sessions. 

The executive bureau chief of the district attorney’s rackets division, Josh Hanshaft, said the men had been “telling witnesses to forget what they know, not to come to court, to disappear,” and said prosecutors had “clear, substantial evidence” that part of the plan to silence witnesses involved offering money to dissuade their testimony. He said of Mr. Rubin, “He has no regard for the system. He thumbs his nose at the system,” and of the Berger brothers: “They have gone and destroyed property. There have been threatening phone calls.” He said prosecutors were concerned that the men might now flee to Israel.

Rav Schachter - When to call police - 2006

Read this in context of RCA Declaration of 2011

 

Rabbi Hershel Schachter - Should I Call the Police? Mesira & Chilul Hashem from TorahWeb.org on Vimeo.

Beis Yaakov warns about Jerusalem molester

.kikarhashabat

במוסדות החינוך החרדים מחליטים להלחם בתוקפי הילדים, ולעשות סוף לתופעה הבלתי נסבלת שמחללת את נפשותיהם של ילדים תמימים.

בעקבות הפרסומים ב'כיכר השבת' על מקרי תקיפה קשים שהתרחשו בשכונות חרדיות בתקופה האחרונה, נרשמת התעוררות בנושא

לידי 'כיכר השבת' הגיע מכתב חריג שנשלח להוריהם של תלמידות בית הספר 'בית יעקב' הפועל בשכונה מסוימת בירושלים, ונחשב לבית ספר מפורסם.

זהו מכתב חריג מאוד, המהווה תקדים בציבור החרדי, שכן עד עתה לא נרשמה התייחסות פומבית לנושא, בטח שלא בפירוט כזה.

Woman stoned in Beit Shemesh

YNET  "My heart was pounding and all I wanted to do was get out of there," Daniel described her ordeal. "I was terrified. I had my baby with me."

Daniel told Ynet she arrived in Beit Shemesh to purchase a stroller, for her seven-month-old twins. "I was opening the trunk – I was on the phone – when I was pelted. Soon, actual rocks followed. I was helpless."

Two religious women exiting a nearby store rushed to the car to help Daniel get her daughter out of the way and all of them then ran back to the store to take cover.

Heads roll as Chabad rape charges dropped

NYTimes   In a startling reversal in a case that raised questions about misconduct in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, defense lawyers for two of the four men from Crown Heights, indicted last year on charges of raping and forcibly prostituting a neighborhood woman for nearly a decade, said that prosecutors notified them on Wednesday that they were planning to drop all charges in the case. 

 The charges, brought against the men last June, created an initial shock not only because the victim complained of being attacked beginning at age 13, but also because she was a member of the Chabad Lubavitch community of Orthodox Jews and the accused were older black men in the same neighborhood, where those two groups coexist, but rarely interact. 

Shortly after the police report was produced, Abbie Greenberger, a prosecutor on the case who had quit her job, said that her boss, Lauren Hersh, the chief of the district attorney’s sex-trafficking unit, had pressured her to move forward despite concerns about inconsistencies in the case. Weeks later, Ms. Hersh herself resigned after facing questions from an internal ethics panel.

ORA vs. Rav R' Feinstein's grandson

Jewish Press  article taken down - thanks to Rabbi Tzadok for alternative
The letter and the seruv below - were part of the Jewish Press Article
Please note the disparity between Stern's claim for support for public demonstrations and the actual letter which just says to publicize the matter  - which can also be done with a letter on a bulletin board. 
================================
 Jewish Press Archive  JP: Your latest case is against Rabbi Reuven Feinstein’s grandson. Are you afraid of going toe-to-toe with some of these leading rabbis?

JS: We don’t see it as us vs. them. It’s not ORA that’s doing it. We are the enforcement agent of the Beis Din and these rabbis are coming out and instructing the community to take a stand. Rav Reuven Feinstein, the grandfather of Avrohom Meir Weiss, is supporting him, but every rabbi is on the other side. We have Rav Malkiel Kotler, Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky, Rav [Hershel] Shecheter, Rav [Mordechai] Willig and Rav [Notta] Greenblatt — all these rabbis from different yeshivas are all coming together. We’ve tried to resolve this dispute but the community has to take a stand. It is unique to have such broad support.

ORA Jewish Press Regarding Weiss Seruv - Package Letter to Public Re Rally 6.13.12

5tjt interviews D.A. Charles Hynes

4 views of the Rabbinic role in abuse cases

The discussion of the role of the rabbi in dealing with abuse - reveals that there are four basic views. Without being aware of these different views - people tend to talk past each other even when they are using the same terms and citing the same halachic sources.

1) Rav Menashe Klein wrote a teshuva about how only rabbis know what to do. Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein asserted at a conference of psychologists (Click for recording) a year ago  that only a rabbi knows and understands what abuse is and only he can is competent to judge whether someone is an abuser. He apparently views that psychologists have a limited understand of abuse as well as guilt because they have a secular viewpoint. In short an exclusive Torah background is the prerequisite for being qualified to deal with abuse and identify abusers. However not every rabbi who feels this way is willing to admit it - especially in the face of complaints from the secular authorities

2) The Aguda rabbis  don't claim competence in understand the nature of abuse. But they do claim authority based on halacha to be the gatekeeper of the process. Thus the rabbis and only the rabbi is to decide based on reports or questioning of alleged perpetrator and victim and  possible consultations with psychologists and lawyers - whether the police should be contacted or whether the matter should be dealt with exclusively within the Jewish community. This group manifests various degrees of fear.Some are afraid to say to go to the police - while others are afraid that it become known that they have permitted going to the police. There are also rabbis who are in group one but publicly assert this view - when under pressure from secular forces.

3) There are a number of rabbis - such as RCA 2011 Rav Herschel Schachter 2006,   Crown Heights Beis Din ,  Vaad haRabbonim of Baltimore 2007 who have clearly stated that rabbis have neither the knowledge, competence or authority to deal with abuse. Those rabbis have stated that the secular authorities need to be contacted to investigate and punish the alleged or suspected abuser. These rabbis assert there is no prohibition of mesira in these cases and that the perpetrator has the status of rodef and thus it is simply an act of self-defense to contact the police. In addition - even if they are in agreement with view two - in the fact of mandated reporting laws = they publicly advocate compliance with the law of the land . Many of rabbis who accept this position -  ask not to be named - although others aren't afraid.

4) Various combinations of the above three positions.

Are Rabbis protected by Privileged Communications Laws?

 Update 6/20/2012 I received the following letter as a response to my post which now follows the letter:

Rabbi Eidensohn,

Thanks again for posting on a subject that's both important and fascinating. I have some sources about the situation in New York State, which makes them somewhat tangential to your blog post. (Though N.Y. is, obviously, an important jurisdiction with respect to, e.g., Jewish child abuse cases.) A number of years ago I suffered harm because my layman's intuitions about the clergy-penitent privilege (in New York State) were, as my elders might have said, "_punkt verkehrt_". For the situation in New York, the Court of Appeals decision (2001) in Lightman v. Flaum frames many of the issues quite lucidly:

Lightman v. Flaum, 761 NE 2d 1027 - NY: Court of Appeals 2001 - Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17074219841436910036&hl=en&as_sdt=2,33 The earlier litigation in the case makes it easier to understand:

Lightman v. Flaum, 179 Misc. 2d 1007 - NY: Supreme Court 1999 - Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17330171931524873576&hl=en&as_sdt=2,33

Lightman v. Flaum, 278 AD 2d 373 - NY: Appellate Div., 2nd Dept. 2000 - Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7886059926242344206&hl=en&as_sdt=2,33 It appears to me that it's not just the detailed provisions, but even the underlying _logic_ and _purpose_ of these laws, that varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Every layman I know was surprise when they read Lightman v. Flaum.

P.S. A passage from Wikipedia's article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest%E2%80%93penitent_privilege#United_States_of_America) might serve as a warning that things aren't necessarily intuitive: In twenty-five states, the clergyman-communicant statutory privilege does not clearly indicate who holds the privilege. In seventeen states, the penitent's right to hold the privilege is clearly stated. In only six states, both a penitent and a member of the clergy are expressly allowed by the statute to hold the privilege.

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 This was my original post:
Privileged communication for clergyman is not clearly defined in New Jersey. In other words a determined prosecutor probably could get charges to stick. There is also the important distinction of whether it is a confession or that the beis din is aware from other sources. Confession is the most likely protected knowledge.

The following is a government report summarizing the issues of clergy as mandated reporting

http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/statutes/clergymandated.pdf

Privileged Communications
As a doctrine of some faiths, clergy must maintain the confidentiality of pastoral communications. Mandatory reporting statutes in some States specify the circumstances under which a communication is “privileged” or allowed to remain confidential. Privileged communications may be exempt from the requirement to report suspected abuse or neglect. The privilege of maintaining this confidentiality under State law must be provided by statute. Most States do provide the privilege, typically in rules of evidence or civil procedure.4 If the issue of privilege is not addressed in the reporting laws, it does not mean that privilege is not granted; it may be granted in other parts of State statutes.
This privilege, however, is not absolute. While clergy-penitent privilege is frequently recognized within the reporting laws, it is typically interpreted narrowly in the context of child abuse or neglect. The circumstances under which it is allowed vary from State to State, and in some States it is denied altogether. For example, among the States that list clergy as mandated reporters, New Hampshire and West Virginia deny the clergy-penitent privilege in cases of child abuse or neglect. Four of the States that enumerate “any person” as a mandated reporter (North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Texas) also deny clergy-penitent privilege in child abuse cases.
In States where neither clergy members nor “any person” are enumerated as mandated reporters, it is less clear whether clergy are included as mandated reporters within other broad categories of professionals who work with children. For example, in Virginia and Washington, clergy are not enumerated as mandated reporters, but the clergy-penitent privilege is affirmed within the reporting laws. [which isn't true of New Jersey]

Molester killed by Father - case sent to Grand Jury

Chicago Tribune  A grand jury next week will consider whether to file charges against a Texas father who said he beat to death a man who was attempting to sexually assault his 5-year-old daughter, the district attorney for Lavaca County said on Friday.

A witness saw Jesus Flores, 47, "forcibly" carrying the girl to a secluded location and notified her 23-year-old father, who was attending a barbecue at the family's ranch outside Shiner, Texas, last Saturday, District Attorney Heather McMinn said.

The father, whose name has not been released because he has not been charged with a crime, heard his daughter's screams and ran to a secluded area, where he "removed Flores from on top of his child and, in the process, inflicted several blows to the man's head and neck area," McMinn said.