WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post
By Sarah Pulliam Bailey September 9
A once-influential Orthodox rabbi who was sentenced to prison for videotaping dozens of women as they prepared for a ritual bath in a Washington synagogue, has issued an apology to the women, the first time he has spoken publicly since his arrest last fall.
In a letter published Wednesday, Barry Freundel wrote that he would have preferred to apologize individually to each of his victims, but he felt that it could cause further harm to some and would be unwelcome, so he issued a public apology, saying he “shattered the worlds of those I most loved.”
“No matter how many times I attempt to apologize, it will never be enough,” Freundel wrote in his Sept. 8 letter of apology, which was at the Washington Jewish Week’s Web site. “I am sorry, beyond measure, for my heinous behavior and the perverse mindset that provoked my actions.”
In May, Freundel who had pleaded guilty to secretly videotaping 52 women, was sentenced to 6 1 /2 years in prison. He had been arrested in October 2014 on charges that he videotaped nude women at Kesher Israel synagogue in Georgetown as the women prepared for the bath known as a mikvah, used as part of a purification ritual.
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