New York – Weberman Juror: Anti-Semitism Played No Role In Guilty Verdict

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    Nechemya Weberman (center)at State Supreme Court in Brooklyn after being found guilty of 59 counts of sexual abuse. L-R: Defense Attorney Michael Farkas, Nechemya Weberman, defense attorney George Farkas.(Photo By: Jesse Ward/NY Daily News via Getty Images-VINnews.com)New York – One of the men who served on the jury in the Nechemya Weberman trial is pushing back against the public perception that anti-Semitism was the motivating factor in deciding to convict Weberman.

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    In an hour-long interview with the Daily News (http://nydn.us/V917ME), the 42-year-old unidentified juror adamantly denied that notion, saying, “It wasn’t religion, it wasn’t their background, it wasn’t revenge. It was a young girl and an old man alone in a room.”

    Weberman was convicted on December 10 on all 59 counts. Following the guilty verdict, Weberman’s lawyer, George Farkas, said Hasidic Jews do not have “the same shot with a jury as anyone else.”

    But the juror denied that and said the 12-person panel did not harbor any bias against Weberman or his community, nor did they see Weberman as a “monster.”

    “We realized we couldn’t make a flippant decision and ruin a man’s life,” the juror said. “It was, ‘Oh boy, we have a serious job.’”

    The juror said that while the victim’s four-day “emotional” testimony was compelling, the jury wanted “something else” to substantiate the girl’s claims and they found it in the testimony of social worker Sara Fried. Ms. Fried testified that the victim was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder because of the years of abuse she endured at Weberman’s hands.

    “That’s what clinched it,” the juror said. “We took a vote and everyone was unanimous.”

    The jury also took note of the many locks in Weberman’s home; that he sheltered runaway teenagers; and that he confessed to driving the victim upstate unaccompanied.

    “It raises a lot of red flags,” the juror said.

    The jury deliberated for approximately five hours before finding Weberman guilty.


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    71 Comments
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    PaulinSaudi
    PaulinSaudi
    11 years ago

    The evidence seemed pretty certain. He is 52 years old and may be sentenced to 117 years (170?). In any case, I bet he serves half of it or even less.

    sane
    sane
    11 years ago

    5 hours was a relatively short time to convict.

    11 years ago

    Kudos to this righteous gentile!

    Realistic
    Realistic
    11 years ago

    A social worker can only diagnose based on what the patient tells her. So if her testimony wasn’t enough, what does the social worker add.

    This was a trick to make 3 witnesses (girl, mother and social worker) out of one (the girl). and the stupid jury fell for it. They believed that there were multiple witnesses, when in fact it all boiled down to her say.

    I’m not arguing that there was no evidence, but if a jury can interpret this as “Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt”, I have pity with every one who falls in to this justice system.

    chayamom
    chayamom
    11 years ago

    Seems to me anytime a Jew is indicted on any crime the first outcry is anti-semitism! It’s time to accept that Jews don’t have special status when they do something wrong.

    Benny
    Benny
    11 years ago

    “But the juror denied that and said the 12-person panel did not harbor any bias against Weberman or his community”

    What else are they going to say?
    Will they say they are stupid or anticemitic?

    “nor did they see Weberman as a “monster.”
    No, you didn’t, you just gave this fellow 117 years!!!

    11 years ago

    Since none of you sat through the entire trial, nor did you see the victim endure 14 hours of cross-examination by the defense attorney, you really don’t know what you’re talking about.

    MAYERFREUND
    MAYERFREUND
    11 years ago

    I am chasidic and I was a number of times in the jury. I can tell you that antisemitism plays a big role in the jury room. I have friends that were also jurors and they say the same thing. Of course a gentile that convicts a Jew won’t say it because this will be a ground to appeal, and “halacah hu beyudi’ah sh’eisov soney le’yakov”.

    rikki
    Member
    rikki
    11 years ago

    Why, oh why????? do these people assume he’s innocent…we have Yichud laws just for this reason. As a Chossid he should have observed these laws beyond what’s Halacha as Chassidim usually do things beyond Halacha. Please, everyone, remember this is a sheltered 12-15 year old naive young girl. Three locks on a door—this is a red light for a grown up. A child doesn’t realize what this means until it’s too late. I have one question for Weberman’s defenders, “Would you leave your teenage daughter alone in a room with him for three hours with locked doors?”I doubt it….by the way, my husband refused to give a ride to a girl from Upstate to NY as it’s Yichud, alone on the highway at night because of this case. We’re not Chassidish but this a serious issue. Also, why, in Heaven’s Name, was she going to a male and not a femaile? We don’t send our girls for Kallah classes to men!!!!! It seems, to me, Weberman had everyone fooled, even his lawyers..

    thegreatone
    thegreatone
    11 years ago

    The juror himself said so therefore its Torah MiSinai? Its an old secret that a religious Jew has no chance with a jury.Farkas said it very politely but in private any good lawyer will tell a hassidic client plead guilty because you have zero chance. They heard all the evidence but also read the NY Post and the Daily News and was definitely without a doubt influenced by the antisemitic media.The Post and daily news without a doubt they are antisemitic papers.Notice how each time they make sure to mention “rabbi” orthodox Jew” religious Jew”. Would they keep on saying each time “black man found guilty”? Spanish man?Irish man?

    We all don’t know the truth what happened but we do know the media painted a picture of Weberman is a hassidic Jew with a belly and beard lives in wiiliamsburg Afghanistan a member of Satmar Taliban’s and he is a vile pig like Mulah Omar. SHAME ON THE POST and POOR Weberman will live his life in jail

    Aryeh
    Aryeh
    11 years ago

    So now PTSD is evidence?!

    Sol-Sol
    Sol-Sol
    11 years ago

    So I guess it’s time for The Farkas group to go on vacation!
    They got paid anyway!

    maxedout
    maxedout
    11 years ago

    My only wish is for them to arrest and jail every member of the vaad hatznius. How my family behaves is my business, not some self appointed hoodlum with a “burd ‘n payes”.

    Halaivy
    Halaivy
    11 years ago

    The problem is not Anti-antisemitism it’s more that simple jurors don’t understand the culture of the Hungarian Williamsburg Chasidic Jew where there’s lots of trust and family like feeling and taking a girl up state in order to get her attention when counseling her is not unheard of. These people also don’t watch TV and movies they hardly see any stripped women on the street and get a musar lesson and Shalosh Shudos Torah on a steady basis which makes them less likely to think sex first so they do things that the world might think of them as proof of bad thoughts without it being their intention.
    It would be advisable to have 2 Chasidic jurors in every such case so they can explain to the jury the culture so the can make the right decision.

    Phineas
    Phineas
    11 years ago

    We have robbed the accusation of anti-semitism of its power by claiming it every time something happens that we don’t like. I’m surprised we didn’t accuse Hashem of anti-semitism when Hurricane Sandy destroyed shuls.

    11 years ago

    Antisemites don’t convict Jews for hurting other Jews. They like to see Jews being hurt by their own. Just like the conviction rate for Black on Black crime is lower than for Black on White crime. If Weberman had allegedly molested a Gentile girl, then the antisemitic allegation might make sense. But in the case of a Jewish girl, an anti-Semite would likely thing something like :”Good, let him mess up a few more of them.” As to the myth that frum Jews always are sentenced egregiously, Kolko and Lanner sure got off easy.

    11 years ago

    Let’s volunteer fifty thousand chassidim to jury duty and in two weeks jury system will be done away with.

    Liepa
    Liepa
    11 years ago

    No one knows for sure what happened between Weberman and the girl, if anything at all. I’ll admit, locked doors, trips upstate etc don’t look too good for Weberman, yet it still doesn’t make him guilty.

    This though should be a lesson to everyone, one should never place themselves in any situation where if they ever needed to give an account for being in that situation would make them look guilty. Like someone said, her husband refused to give a girl a ride from upstate to the City, at night because of yichud.
    That’s the extreme we need to go to, especially in this day and age.

    11 years ago

    I am so happy my daughters will be protected now because they also were sent to an unlicensed therapist in Brooklyn because they liked to play kickball and girls aren’t supposed to like this. It’s time we used licensed doctors in our community and not someone who worked in a pants factory to earn his credentials.

    Cohen
    Cohen
    11 years ago

    Like we all expected the juror to say “it was anti-semitism”!! How stupid does this juror think we are???
    I’m not discussing if in fact anti-semitism did or did not play a role in the verdict, all I’m saying is that the juror had not choice but to say there was no anti-semitism involved in the verdict!

    It reminds me of a story I had a few years ago. I moved to a new house and I wasn’t getting all my mail. I called my local post office and filed a complaint. A few days later the manager of the post office called me back and said “I spoke to your mailman and he said he is delivering all your mail”. I told the manager “did you expect him to tell you that he is NOT delivering all my mail? Did you expect him to say he is stealing some of my mail”? How stupid can people be? I told him even though the mailman claims he is delivering all my mail I’m not getting it. To prove it, I mailed myself an envelope and it was never delivered to me!!! After all this the manager told me “but your mailman told me he is delivering all your mail”. Lost case!!!
    Back to our case what did you want the juror to say????????

    JoeGrossJR
    JoeGrossJR
    11 years ago

    Realistic Says  baba:52 AM
    You wrote, “This was a trick to make 3 witnesses”
    Sorry but if there is corroborative testimony, as outcry that by itself is a legally considered corroborative testimony and therefore you have an exception to the “Hearsay” rule.

    Mayerfreund   11:48 AM
    And you really think there is even one person who believes your story, sorry not even one.

    Feel Betrayed Says  1:16 PM
    How do you know that the jurors read the newspapers when the Judge instructed them not to, I presume that you broke into their houses and hid under the beds, to see for yourself.

    Aryeh Says   1:34 PM
    Yes PTSD was always considered evidence and, jury makes up their mind based on the credibility of the professional who testifies.

    Robert Says   2:53 PM
    The law gives latitude to any professional who in their daily business do a certain task, that they are considered an expert. When you have a nurse examines a rape victim, the nurse will testify as to the signs of rape, even if the defendant argues that it was consensual and rough.

    JoeGrossJR
    JoeGrossJR
    11 years ago

    Anonymous Says:   6:04 PM
    You wrote; “The US Constitution promises a jury of one’s peers.”

    Wrong, the 6th Amendment guarantees the accused the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. The phrase “jury of one’s peers” is not included in the Amendment, however, the courts interpret peer to mean equal, i.e., the jury pool must include a cross section of the population of the community in terms of gender, race, and national origin. The jury selection process must not “exclude or intentionally narrow” any particular group of people.
    A jury of one’s peers does not mean a black defendant must be tried by an all-black jury or a female defendant must be tried by an all-woman panel. The objective is to select an impartial jury from a randomly selected juror pool who will be fair, listen to the facts of the case, and render a just verdict based on the evidence. Otherwise any bank robber or rapist could claim I want a jury of my peers i.e. another bank robber or rapist in the jury pool.

    11 years ago

    I wonder if any of the posters crying “antisemitism” or attacking the victim would be an unbiased member of a jury. If you’re on a jury and you intend to absolve a defendant solely because he’s Frum and you don’t want to see him convicted in a secular court, you don’t belong on a jury.

    Open-Your-Eyes
    Open-Your-Eyes
    11 years ago

    While I am not trying to say guilty or not, I would like to bring the following to light. Everyone asks why are more witnesses not coming forward?

    A heimishe girl, in her right mind, that intends to do a heimishe shiduch will never reveal that someone had z’nus with her. Furthermore, if she’s already married it will be below her dignity to even tell her husband, and even if she would, she will NEVER go public with the story for the sake of her kids and einiklech…

    Unfortunately only someone in this accusor’s stage will come forward. And this might have played – in Weberman’s mind – to his advantage, if he did what he’s accused of…

    Insider
    Insider
    11 years ago

    Three heavy bolt locks locking from inside an apartment office is exceedingly excessive. Who was being locked out? His wife? His children? Weberman spending hours inside a triple locked office is grounds for suspicion. If the girls says that she was molested, those locks do not strenghten his innocence. Just the opposite. Combined with all the other factors, Weberman, chusid or not, is as guilty as sin. If the so-called high-powdered dud attorney felt that a chusid has no chance (of course, after he lost the case and after he cashed his check), he should have originally advised taking the 5 year plea bargain offerred. Then Weberman could of been out on the steets in 15 months (good behavior, half-way house, work release, etc.). Plainly, the attorney and Weberman himself are loosers. Of course ant-Semitism is to blame. Anti-Semitic locks, Anti-Semitic all day auto trip, Anti-Semitic Jewish LCSW therapist. Anti-Semitic victim. The chasidish Weberman did not have a chance. Poor poor Weberman.

    jack-l
    jack-l
    11 years ago

    the goyim arent too crazy about jews to begin with …and most people also dislike a criminal who masquerades as righteous Way more more than they dislike a legitimate bad guy. think of indecent or lechorous teacher, priest, doctor or unfortunately a rabbi vs. billy the kid or al capone
    and so do i …..especially when he pretends to be erlecher yid

    Reb Yid
    Reb Yid
    11 years ago

    We’s ain’t no anti-Semites; we’s just up against those 10,000 black hats like Bloomberg said.

    shulem
    shulem
    11 years ago

    The antisemitism was open and blatant in every newspaper. Ultra orthodox rabbi leader in the community.. I have good reason myself to believe that Weberman is guilty, and no reason at all to believe that the jury was antisemitic. I was just terribly upset about the negative coverage my whole community was getting because of the alleged crime of one individual.

    11 years ago

    monalisa, just because you weren’t picked doesn’t mean frum Jews are never picked, or even that they’re picked less often than others. My understanding is that there is a very limited number of peremptory challenges. Mostly they have to state their reason for dismissing a juror, and “he’s too frum” won’t fly. Using peremptory challenges to eliminate frum Jews is quite illegal.

    Sol-Sol
    Sol-Sol
    11 years ago

    I agree with Post 64!

    I was also at trial! Mr Weberman was simply not credible at all. Besides for all the stuff he admitted too!!

    11 years ago

    What I wonder is, where was the girls mother when he supposedly visited the pajama-clad daughter in her bedroom ??