NEW YORK
The Jewish Week
08/13/14
Amy Sara Clark
Staff Writer
When Kenneth Thompson unseated longtime Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes last November, advocates for Jewish victims of sex abuse were jubilant.
But, despite Thompson’s release last week of the names of 20 defendants in sex abuse cases that his predecessor had refused to unveil, in the months since Thompson has taken office the optimism advocates and victims initially felt has, for some, turned to disappointment.
Thompson campaigned on a platform of reform, including promising to more vigorously prosecute sex abuse cases than his predecessor, who is accused of dragging his feet on those cases to win the support of Brooklyn’s charedi leaders, who prefer to handle the claims internally.
But survivors and their advocates have decidedly mixed reviews of Thompson so far.
Ben Hirsch, co-founder of Survivors for Justice, an organization that advocates and educates on issues related to child safety, has been critical of Thompson’s tenure to date. He points to the DA’s plea bargain that led to no jail time for a man who threw bleach in the face of a prominent victim’s advocate as sending a message that he’s not going to go after people who try to intimidate victims and their advocates into not testifying.
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