Jews for Allah

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Rabbi Charged In Sex Abuse
by Caren Halbfinger

Journal News (Westchester County, NY)

February 20, 1999 Saturday - NEWS; Pg. 1B


YONKERS - A city yeshiva teacher has been charged with sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy last summer at a Sullivan County camp.


Rabbi Yaakov Weiner, who teaches kindergartners and first-graders at Stein Yeshiva of Lincoln Park in Yonkers, is accused of sexually touching a 10-year-old boy in a cabin at Camp Mogen Avraham in Bethel in the early morning hours of Aug. 9, state police investigator Geoffrey Cabrera said yesterday.


There were other boys in the cabin at the time, Cabrera said. Weiner taught Judaic studies at the camp. Weiner is to appear March 4 in Thompson Town Court on charges of first-degree sexual abuse, a felony, and endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. Weiner, 36, of Forest Hills, Queens, was charged Feb. 11 and was released Feb. 12 after posting $25,000 bail.


Sullivan County District Attorney Stephen Lungen said yesterday that he was continuing to investigate the case and that he expected to present it to a grand jury within the next few weeks.


Cabrera said he called the principal at Stein Yeshiva, an Orthodox religious school, to verify Weiner's employment on Monday and found school officials caught off-guard about the investigation.


'' They hadn't been informed by (Weiner), and they were pretty mortified, '' Cabrera said. '' They said they had never dealt with anything like this in the past. ''


School officials refused to answer questions yesterday and told parents not to speak to a reporter. But from the shocked reaction of one mother, it appeared the school had told parents little about the charge against Weiner.


The 10-year-old boy, who lives in Nassau County, reported the incident to camp officials immediately, Cabrera said.


But, Lungen said, camp officials never reported the incident to police.


School officials, doctors and child-care workers are required by state law to report suspected incidents of abuse.


The camp's Manhattan office was closed yesterday.


The child's parents told Nassau County police about the alleged abuse in late October. Nassau County police immediately passed the information to state police in Liberty, N.Y., Cabrera said, but Lungen said his office wasn't notified until a week ago.


'' We're trying to figure out what happened, '' Lungen said. '' We're looking into what caused the delay. It appears the original officer who got the case got transferred and never followed it up. Unfortunately, those things do happen, and that's the way it appears. ''


Cabrera said he was assigned to the case on Dec. 10, after being transferred to the Liberty State Police Barracks from Orange County, where he had spent the past six years investigating child abuse cases. He would not comment on what happened to the case before he started to work on it.



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