"Now He'll Learn How to Feel Helpless," Victim of Rabbi Sex Monster Breaks Her Silence

Daily Mail
December 11, 2012

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2246393/Now-hell-learn-feel-helpless-Victim-rabbi-sex-monster-breaks-silence.html

The teenage victim of a Rabbi who subjected her to years of systematic rape and sexual abuse has described her joy at his conviction, declaring: 'Now he'll learn how it feels to be helpless.'

Rabbi Nechemya Weberman faces over 25 years in jail after he was found guilty of fondling the teen, forcing her to perform oral sex on him, and making her act out porn films, over the course of many years beginning when she was 12.

The girl's parents, now 17, sent her to Weberman, an influential religious counselor in New York, for extra tuition after she broke various rules of their ultra-orthodox and secretive Satmar Jewish sect.

But instead the 'master manipulator' subjected her to a campaign of sadistic abuse convincing her parents that she was a 'rebellious liar' who needed strict re-education.

Trusted: Rabbi Nechemya Weberman as convicted of 59 counts related to sexually abusing a girl he was being paid to counsel

And today, as Weberman awaited sentence in a New York prison cell, the girl told the Daily Post: 'I can’t wait until someone stronger, who weighs 350 pounds more, holds him down, lets him know how it feels to be so helpless.'

The depths of Weberman's sexual perversions appeared limitless and his cruel and premeditated programme of abuse grew into evermore painful and humiliating acts of domination.

They culminated one day during a 'lesson' in his study when he began burning her bare stomach with a lighter, simply because 'he found it arousing', she said.

'He told me, "When you go home, you put on peanut butter,"' she said. 'I stayed in my bed for three days. I didn’t get out of bed. I didn’t eat. I just wanted to die... I was 13, I think.'

She told how he turned her mother against her, threatening to cast the family out of the religious order if she didn't improve.

With no one left to turn to, she had no choice but to internalise the pain and live in silence.

'I didn’t love, I didn’t hate,' she said. 'I felt nothing. I froze my emotions. I wouldn’t let myself feel anything.'

The abuse finally stopped when she moved to a less religious school and was able to tell teachers of her ordeal.

Weberman, was yesterday led away in handcuffs after he was found guilty of 59 counts of sexual abuse. He faces 25 years in prison for the worst of the charges and two to seven years on lesser charges.

Pillar: The insular orthodox Jews Weberman leads fiercely supported the rabbi, holding fundraisers for him

It took jurors a day and a half to decide the case, and defense attorneys are already vowing an appeal.

'We firmly believe that the jury got an unfairly sanitized version of the facts,' said attorney George Farkas. 'As a result, the truth did not come out and the struggle continues in full force to free this innocent man.'

Weberman was charged with 88 counts of sexual abuse and assault.

The trial cast a harsh light on the rules of the secretive community.

Prosecutors say the girl's parents sent their rebellious daughter to him for counselling after she broke several rules of the sect, including reading magazines like Cosmopolitan and People and wearing stockings that were too thin.

Rabbi Weberman was supposed to be re-indoctrinating the girl and bringing her back to the ultra-conservative standards of the community after she was branded a 'heretic.'

Instead, she told a counsellor years later, that he was abusing her.

'When you think about it,' assistant district attorney Kevin O’Donnell said, the alleged victim's parents 'were actually paying the defendant to have sex with their daughter.'

O'Donnell added that Weberman abused the girl, now age 17, 'over and over again.'

Her family paid him $12,800 in counseling fees during that time, the victim's mother testified Monday.

'I wanted to die rather than live with myself,' the accuser, who's identity has not been made public, testified. 'I didn't know how to fight. I was numb.'

Circus: Weberman's trial was not smooth, with his supporters taking photos of his alleged victim during her testimony and posting them to Twitter

The rabbi's lawyers fiercely denied the allegations. They say the girl made up the story to retaliate against him.

They claimed the girl went to police only after Weberman and her parents set up hidden cameras to secretly record the girl having sex with her boyfriend when she was still underage.

Weberman turned the tapes over to police in the hopes that the boyfriend would be prosecuted.

The charges against the boyfriend were later dropped.

Weberman's lawyers also claim that he had been business partners with the girl's parents and that the families had a falling out.

The Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, rallied around the rabbi - sponsoring fundraisers to pay for his legal defense.

The community numbers around 250,000 - the largest sect of its type outside of Israel.

Weberman's supporters were so protective of him they disrupted the course of the trial when they allegedly photographed the accuser during her testimony.

Four men were led out of a New York court room and arrested in late November after jumping up to take pictures of her on their phones while she gave evidence.

Each was a members of the strict Satmar sect in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, of which Rabbi Weberman is leader.

One image of the girl was even posted to a Twitter account.

Caged: Weberman faces faces 25 years in prison for the worst of the charges and two to seven years on lesser charges.

The judge criticised the men for outing the young woman, according to the Post.

'You know about the Torah, you know about rabbinical courts. This is a civil court,' Supreme Court Justice John Ingram told them.

'Your phones will be held for possible criminal prosecution. You may wish to avail yourself of counsel.'

The four - Lemon Juice, 30, Joseph Fried, 23, Yona Weisman, 23, and Abraham Zupnick, 23 - were taken from Brooklyn Supreme Court to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office for questioning. They face criminal contempt charges that could carry up to a year in prison, a source said.

Mr Weisman denied taking a picture, according to the Post. All spectators at the trial were then ordered to hand over their phones by the judge. One source is quoted as describing the move as being similar to what happens in a gang trial.