CALIFORNIA
Jewish Journal
by Jared Sichel
Mendel Tevel, who was arrested in Beverly Hills in Oct. 2013 and then extradited to Brooklyn on charges of sexual abuse stemming from an Apr. 2007 incident, pleaded guilty in a New York courtroom before Judge Elizabeth Foley on Apr. 24 to two counts of criminal sexual acts in the third degree, according to Lupe Todd, a spokeswoman for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.
In Aug. 2013, the Jewish Journal published an investigative report on Tevel—who is now 31 or 32—in which four of his alleged victims detailed apparent instances of sexual abuse that ranged from about 1995 to about 2004. The ages of the alleged victims ranged from 6 to 14. Allegations against Tevel first became public in October 2012, when Meyer Seewald, the 26-year-old founder of Jewish Community Watch, listed him on the group’s “Wall of Shame”—a website that spotlights people it considers sexual predators within Orthodox communities—after multiple victims had approached him.
Following a sealed grand jury indictment in New York, the Brooklyn D.A.’s office charged Tevel in Oct. 2013 with sexual abuse of one minor, at which point he was arrested in Beverly Hills and held in a Los Angeles County jail for more than a week, then was extradited on Nov. 7 to Brooklyn. He pleaded not guilty to 37 counts of sexual abuse—most were either first-degree or third-degree—and was released on $100,000 bail.
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