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	Fiend Rabbi on Run By Angela Montefinise New York Post May 21, 2006 http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/66361.htm May 21, 2006 -- A popular New Age rabbi accused of sexually abusing three co-workers in Israel has fled to the United States - to the horror of several New York women who say he molested them as children and walked away scot-free. Rabbi Mordechai Gafni - born Marc Winiarz - was fired this month from the Israeli spiritual center he founded after three women filed complaints of sexual misconduct with Israeli police. He is believed to now be in Massachusetts or Colorado. Gafni, 46, worked in New York in the 1980s as a rabbi for the now-defunct Jewish Public School Youth program. But he was offering young girls more than spiritual counseling, his alleged victims claim. Judy, whose last name is being withheld by The Post, said she was 16 and suffering in a "tumultuous" home environment, including ailing parents, when Gafni invited her to stay at his Flatbush home, where he lived with his second wife, to "escape." One night 20 years ago this month, Judy said Gafni came into her room, told her he knew what she wanted and took off her clothes. He climbed on top of her as if preparing for intercourse, then asked her when she last had her period. Then, deciding she could get pregnant, "Mordechai took my hand and forced me to help him climax," she said. "I had never done anything like that before. I had never even seen a man naked. He ejaculated all over me. I felt horrible." He then threatened that he would "destroy" her if she told anyone, she said. With the support of her JPSY advisers, she decided to tell her story anyway - and he "ruined" her life for two years. Another woman said was only 13 when Gafni came into her room and molested her. The abuse went on for a year. "He believed it was a mutually consensual relationship," she said. "Which was really horrifying because it was sexual violence, it was physical domination." Gafni left New York for Florida in 1988 and eventually settled in Israel. In a letter to members of the Israeli organization that fired him this month, Gafni wrote in vague terms about allegations against him: "I take full responsibility for all the pain I have inflicted. Clearly all of this and more indicates that in these regards I am sick. I need to acknowledge that sickness and to get help for it." angela.montefinise@nypost.com
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