NEW YORK
The Wall Street Journal
By PERVAIZ SHALLWANI
A Brooklyn man has been charged with trying to buy the silence of an alleged sexual-abuse victim and her boyfriend in a criminal case against a beloved counselor in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, authorities said Thursday.
The man’s arrest, along with three others accused of witness intimidation, were the first from a Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office task force created this year to grapple with the intimidation of sexual-abuse victims in the Orthodox Jewish community. District Attorney Charles Hynes has been accused of not zealously prosecuting such cases in that community, but he said his office has brought more than 100 cases, even as prosecutors face limited cooperation.
Charges against one of the four defendants, Abraham Rubin, 48 years old, include trying to give the victim $500,000 to leave the U.S. instead of testifying against Nechemya Weberman, an unlicensed therapist on trial for allegedly molesting the victim in his home and office from when she was 12 to 15 years old. He was arrested in February 2011.
Three other defendants arrested Thursday—Jacob, Joseph and Hertzka Berger—are accused of trying to pressure the couple into not testifying by threatening to remove a kosher certificate in a restaurant owned and operated by the boyfriend, Mr. Hynes said.
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