By John Marzulli
New York Daily News
March 9, 2009
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/03/09/2009-03-09_rabbi_israel_weingartens_daughter_claims.html
Enough already.
A federal judge refused Monday to allow a rabbi charged with molesting his daughter to turn the courtroom into the "Jerry Springer" show.
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| Rabbi Israel Weingarten cross examines his daughter Chaneh, during his molestation trial on Monday in Brooklyn. Photo by Jane Rosenberg |
The defendant, Israel Weingarten, who is acting as his own attorney, called two grown daughters Monday to testify that it was their mother who was the child molester, not him.
When Weingarten said he planned to call three more children, ages 13 to 18, to take the stand in Brooklyn Federal Court, the judge had enough.
"Your 13-year-old son is going to testify about sexual abuse by your wife?" Judge John Gleeson asked.
Weingarten replied that the boy would testify to physical abuse by his mother.
"I'm not going to permit it," Gleeson snapped.
Earlier the judge had allowed Weingarten's daughters Chayeh, 23, and Chaneh, 20, to testify that their mother had sexually abused their older sister, who claims she was repeatedly sodomized by her father starting in 1990 when she was 9 and continuing until she was 18.
Chayeh Weingarten testified her mother had sexually abused the victim and that she was warned by the victim that the Mafia would get her if she came forward.
The defendant is charged with transporting his daughter across international borders for the purpose of committing sexual crimes against her.
In her closing argument, prosecutor Rachel Nash asked the jury to consider the humiliation and embarrassment the victim endured by speaking publicly of the abuse.
The rabbi and his wife are divorced and he has claimed that she fabricated the abuse allegations as part of the bitter breakup.
Contact: jmarzulli@nydailynews.com
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