Charges Dropped against Rabbi Glick

By Stephen Cauchi and Barney Schwartz
The Age
February 28, 2014

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/charges-dropped-against-rabbi-glick-20140228-33rma.html

A respected rabbi who was stood down from Melbourne's Yeshivah College over allegations that he raped a student in the 1970s has had charges against him dropped.

Rabbi Avrohom Glick, 67, was then deputy principal and later principal of the College. He was head of religious studies when he was stood down last December.

Rabbi Glick, of Balaclava, was arrested and interviewed in December and released pending further inquiries.

Yeshivah College principal Yehoshua Smukler said at the time that although "Rabbi Glick is a highly respected staff member and community figure", he would be immediately stood down.

Rabbi Glick has not attended the campus or had contact with students since.

Chevi Levin, a niece of Rabbi Glick, said on her facebook page on Friday that "after conducting a thorough investigation, Victoria Police has decided NOT to press charges against Rabbi Avrohom Glick.

"This is NOT a case of no evidence or stale evidence. Rather, police have rejected the allegations, which were vexatious and wholly without substance. Police have further denied the accuser avenues of furthering his fictitious claim to the DPP.

"Unfortunately, there is little which can be done to prevent false accusers from making claims against ANYONE (a scary thought indeed!) Yet today, justice has triumphed. Today, Hashem's help and guidance has set an innocent man free. Today, community support has warmed our hearts. And today- well, today is the day that Rabbi Glick gets his life back.

The victim told police he was lured to the worship centre when he was eight and raped "in front of the Sefer Torah", the scroll of the Torah, Judaism's sacred text.

He said he was raped several times and forced to perform oral sex, and that the man also abused another victim.

"After I was raped I was in shock and I went to the office and I was shivering and crying.

"I didn't know what rape was because I was eight years old. I didn't know what sex was, so I didn't have the words to say what happened," the man said.

The arrest was made by Task Force Sano, set up to work with the Victorian inquiry into how religious organisations responded to child sexual abuse.

Two former Yeshivah employees were jailed in Melbourne in 2013 over separate child sex offences.