Abuse Victim Reports Threats and Bribe Offers to Keep Mendy Tevel Out of Jail

Frum Follies
June 10, 2015

https://frumfollies.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/abuse-victim-reports-threats-and-bribe-offers-to-keep-mendy-tevel-out-of-jail/

Rabbi Menachem M (Mendy) Tevel (aka Tewel)

Yesterday I reported on the 1 year jail sentence of Menachem Tewel (aka Mendy Tevel) on charges of oral sex with a minor. Jewish Community Watch has posted the text he used in making a statement to the court just before sentencing. The victim, now a married young adult, spoke eloquently about the persistent harm of abuse including PTSD, difficulties in intimacy and other after effects.

He also spoke about the various attempts to intimidate him out of going forward in pressing his charges. According to his statement:

I’ve been cheered for by many and harassed by many. It seems everyone I met, had their 2 cents to add. Some felt I was doing the right thing and was a hero and others felt that if the defendant went to jail, he would surely be killed and that would be on my conscience. Some even went as far as to call me and my family ‘murderers’.

During the last few months leading up this day, some have tried to threaten or bribe me to drop the charges. I was offered $200,000 to sign documents stating that I consented to and requested the sexual activity and therefore it was not abuse. Others have tried the other approach, threatening me that they have 4 girls willing to testify that I raped them and they will come forward after the sentencing. I have been threatened to have my name smeared publicly in our community to the point that my wife and I would “literally” be unable to walk the streets. Some have gone as far as to approach my wife and attempt to convince her to leave me.

According to the district attorney, Tevel got a plea bargain of 1 year instead of going to trial on 35 charges including 9 B Felonies. In all likelihood, had he gone to trial and been convicted he would have faced decades in jail. If the intimidation succeeded in getting this relatively mild sentence it is a miscarriage justice. Unfortunately, The Brooklyn District Attorney, Kenneth Thompson, has never once prosecuted anyone in the orthodox Jewish community for obstruction of justice or witness tampering. Our children deserve better.