Chabad rabbi Rubashkin Son-In-Law Sued Over Sexual Abuse

Rabbi Yaakov Weiss, a Chabad-ordained rabbi who pleaded guilty in 2010 to child endangerment after admitting in court that he knowingly had inappropriate physical contact with two 13-year-old boys in an Albany, New York area mikva in separate 2007 incidents is now being sued by the boys’ families.

A Chabad-ordained rabbi who pleaded guilty in 2010 to child endangerment after admitting in court that he knowingly had inappropriate physical contact with two 13-year-old boys in an Albany, New York area mikva in separate 2007 incidents is now being sued by the boys’ families, the Albany Times Union reports.

Rabbi Yaakov Weiss, the founder of Chabad of Colonie and the Chabad Hebrew School, is being sued for damages from those alleged sexual assaults and for defaming the youths after pleading guilty by persistently claiming that the abuse allegations were "100% untrue.” Weiss claimed that the allegations were concocted by a rival Chabad rabbi as part of a bizarre Chabad turf war, and that the boys and their families were partisans supporting the rival rabbi.

The case is set for trial in Jan. 22.

Weiss, who is no longer recognized as an official Chabad representative, is a son-in-law of Rabbi Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin, the former VP of Agriprocessors who was convicted of 86 federal counts of bank fraud and related crimes, and who is now serving a 27-year prison sentence.

Even though Chabad's purported policy is that there is no mesirah, prohibition against informing to secular authorities, in child sexual abuse cases, Weiss reportedly complained about the lawsuit to a rabbinical court in Rockland County. That beit din could excommunicate the parents of the victims for taking the case to a secular court.

Weiss was originally charged with with child sexual abuse. The indictment against him reportedly said that Weiss intentionally placed his penis in contact with the children's buttocks.

But Weiss was offered a plea deal that angered at least one child’s parents because it did not require Weiss to register as a sex offender.

Instead, Weiss got 60 days in jail and 3 years' probation.

"You feel betrayed, you feel disgusted and you feel that you would like everything to be thrown at him within the boundaries of the legal system…we found out the legal system doesn't always do everything,” one boy’s father told the Albany Times Union.

"We wanted him on the [sex offender] registry,” the boy’s mother said.

In his plea, Weiss admitted that he told one of the boys to lie to police and to his mother.

“Just say nothing happened,” Weiss admitted he told the boy.

The parents the Times Union that they hope that their civil suit will hold Weiss accountable for what he did to their children in a way that the criminal justice system failed to do.

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/12/rubashkin-son-in-law-sued-over-alleged-mikva-child-sexual-abuse-456.html