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	Monsey-based Rabbi Charged with Sexually Abusing Girl for Nearly a Decade By Steve Lieberman The Journal News October 6, 2008 http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081006/NEWS03/810060385/-1/SPORTS A Monsey rabbi accused of sexually abusing a female relative over the course of a decade pleaded not guilty this afternoon to federal charges in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. Rabbi Israel Weingarten, 58, was ordered held without bail in federal lockup during his arraignment by Magistrate Judge Joan M. Azrack. Weingarten, who had been married and had eight children, pleaded not guilty to the charges through his New City lawyer, Kenneth Gribetz, the former Rockland district attorney. Gribetz ask the judge to release Weingarten without bail. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrea Goldbarg and Rachel Nash argued in court papers and in court that Weingarten represented a flight risk and was capable of intimidating witnesses. Azrack, in denying bail for the rabbi, was critical of Weingarten for resisting the FBI agents who arrested him this morning at his Monsey home. The rabbi refused to let the agents into the house and locked himself in his bedroom. The agents had to break down doors to remove him. FBI agents arrested the Monsey-based rabbi on an grand jury indictment accusing him of sexual abusing a female relative over the course of nearly a decade, starting in 1990 when she was 9 years old. She's now 28 years old. Weingarten is charged with five federal counts, accusing him of traveling around the world to have sex with the minor and avoid being charged. The indictment charges him with two counts of knowingly and intentionally transporting a minor in foreign commerce with the intent to engage in a sexual activity. He also was charged with three counts of knowingly and intentionally traveling in foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in a sexual act with a minor. If convicted at trial, Weingarten faces an estimated prison term of 168 to 210 months in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Weingarten is accused of abusing the young girl on a weekly and sometimes daily basis in Belgium, Israel and the United States, according to documents filed with the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. The girl left her family and the Satmar Hasidic Jewish community in September 1999, when she was 18, federal documents state. Weingarten is accused of trying to kidnap her in 1999 from a family protecting her in England, according to the documents. He's accused of assaulting that rabbi and his wife, who were sheltering the girl. Weingarten teaches children in the Satmar Hasidic Jewish community, the documents said. He ran a Satmar school in Belgium and worked for religious elementary and secondary schools in Brooklyn. U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell asked Judge Magistrate Joan M. Azrack to order Weingarten held without bail. In court papers, Campbell argued Weingarten was a flight risk and a danger to the victim and witnesses. "He moved her to different countries in order to continue the abuse and to escape any threat that he would be apprehended as word of his abuse began to spread," Campbell wrote. "He has resorted to threats and violence to intimidate those who tried to protect the victim and other members of his family."
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