The New York Post Reports Night Is Day, Blocks Sun With Blackout Shades To Prove It

The New York Post takes on haredi child sex abuse and in the process makes Henna White, the Brooklyn DA's Jewish liaison, look like a heroine, and the DA's office look like it's cracking down on haredi child sex abuse, even though the truth appears to be much different. How does the Post manage to do this? By ignoring all evidence that contradicts its reporting.

Charles Hynes, the Kings County (Brooklyn), NY Distric Attorney

I've dealt with dozens of reporters over the years. The New York Post's Susan Edelman is the only one (other than a novice college reporter who contacted me earlier this year) who comes to a story with a preconceived notion of what that story is, and tries to force the facts – and the people she interviews – to fit with her idea.

My experience with Edelman is that facts that don't fit with her preconceived notion are ignored, even when those facts prove her wrong.

Several months ago, I told her I wouldn't work with her again because of that.

But nine days ago she sent me an email from Susan asking if she could call me that afternoon. She wrote that she was doing a story on Kol Tsedek, had read my article on Agudath Israel of America, and wanted to talk. Despite my misgivings, I answered that she could call me and I enclosed my phone number.

And then I waited for a call that didn't come.

This type of behavior isn't that unusual for reporters, although most would be quick to apologize for it the next business day or if not that, the next time they talk to you.

That a reporter is rude isn't a crime, and it's certainly nothing to get excited about. So if that was all there was that was spiking my displeasure, you'd never hear about it.

Unfortunately, Edelman didn't restrict her poor behavior to rudeness.

A reporter who omits key facts in order to write a story that is, essentially, false, has damaged the person or persons those facts support. And she has also damaged you because our system depends on honest reporting to help keep the playing field as even as possible for everyone.

Edeleman eventually called me last week, a few days after that email exchange. She was interested in the Andrew Goodman case, which is featured prominently in her main article today. I asked her about her email from the week before. She said that topic would be part of her report, and she asked what I thought about Hynes' claim that "89" haredi pedophiles had been arrested since late 2009 because of the work his office had done.

I told her what I reported, that haredi uber fixer Tzvi Gluck said publicly that many of those cases were fixed by Hynes, and that Hynes' refusal to release the names of these 89 pedophiles and the resolution of their cases was allowing Hynes to hide the sweetheart deals he allegedly gave these haredi pedophiles.

Edelman told me the DA's office had refused to give her information on those cases, other than some general claims – claims made previously to the Forward, the JTA and others.

I gave her the names of three activists to speak with and I again pointed out that withholding the names of these offenders allowed Hynes to cover up his preferential treatment of haredi offenders and referred her to a recording Tzvi Gluck's remarks made on Zev Brenner's radio show a week earlier.

Remember that Gluck said loudly, clearly and with extreme disgust that most of those cases had been fixed by Hynes. The pedophiles were kept away from cops and the press, they were allowed to plead to misdameanors with sentencing recomendations for no prision time, keeping them off the sex offender registry, and were sent to Ohel for therapy.

That Gluck would say this on air for public consumption is astounding – far more astounding than the number of haredi pedophiles Hynes claims to have dealt with since 2009.

What Gluck said confirms what many activists have long claimed. It also confirms what I recently reported – Agudath Israel of America and Hynes had worked out a deal that allowed haredi rabbis to determine which suspicions of child sex abuse should be reported to civil authorities and which should not, and which allows those haredi rabbis to report those cases they choose to directly to Hynes' Jewish liaison, Henna White, rather than police or ACS, keeping the cases out of the public spotlight and away from the professionals most able to determine the actual threat to children, and who are the best equipped to do the forensic child sex abuse investigations necessary for successful prosecutions.

If Black or Hispanic leaders had worked out a deal with Hynes whereby a member of their community serving as a special liaison would become the point of entry for their pedphilia claims, that Hispanic or Black ministers would determine which abuse allegations would be brought to her and which would not be reported at all, and that she and Hynes would then plead out the vast majority of these pedophiles, giving most of them no jail time and no sex offender registration, we'd all be justifiably outraged.

After all, these pedophiles can and probably would prey on more children, and some of those children cvould even be ours.

But this is exactly what Hynes and Henna White are doing, except the pedophiles and the community involved are haredi.

That any subgroup of Americans should get preferential treatment that includes sweetheart plea deals based on their subgroup affiliation is a clear violation of the victims' civil rights and the civil rights of those criminals who are not members of this religious community and who therefore do not get this special preferrential treatment.

Yet Edelman ignores the complaints about Hynes and White, and she ignores Gluck's very public statement.

(She also "ignores"  the Forward, which broke the story of Hynes' claim, and she ignores extensive reporting by The Jewish Week that puts Hynes claim in a very questionable light, and my own reporting and other's reporting that broke other parts of this wider story.)

Instead, she takes the claims made by Hynes' office' at face value and does not quote activists who reject them or press Hynes for details that could be used to confirm or disprove his claims, and she makes White into a heroine.

Those of you who don't deal with journalism ethics issues or reporters may not understand the severity of Edelman's violations, but they are, nonetheless, extremely serious.

The DA's excuse for not making the names of these haredi pedophiles public is that victims are harassed (by haredi community activists and rabbis, but White is careful not to clarify this point and Edelman doesn't really ask), and therefore the pedophiles names must be kept quiet so the unnamed harassers can't harass the pedophiles' victims.

The truth is that in any cases without sweetheart deals, the victims are vulnerable to threats, extortion and other forms of harassment from haredi community activists and rabbis, even if the pedophiles names are not made public. The way to stop this harassment is to prosecute the people who do it – including the haredi rabbis who do it.

Not allowing the names of pedophiles to become public may temporarily protect some victims, but it will hurt more haredi children, and it also also means the DA can hide what he's doing, and that is very dangerous.

One of the reasons criminals names are supposed to be part of the public record is so the public can see what its courts and police are doing.

That's why trials are open to the public.

But when the DA makes a deal with a specific religious group; allegedly goes easy on members of that group who commit certain crimes as long as they agree to plead guilty to very reduced charges and go to therapy inside their community when the same deal would not be given to the average pedophile who is not a member of that religious group; and makes claims of radically increased arrests and prosecutions of this religious group's criminals but hides key information that would show whether or not the numbers given by the DA are correct, and whether or not the disposition of those cases was fair; you have major problem.

If 20 haredi pedophiles were turned in under a scheme that ensured that none of them would end up on the sex offender registry or do prison time, has that done anything to make the streets (and the shuls, yeshivas and mikvas) any safer for haredi kids?

No it has not.

What if that number was 40 or 50 or even 60? Would that make the streets any safer for haredi kids?

No, it would not.

But this is exactly what Charles Hynes has allegedly done, and this is exactly what the New York Post failed to report – even though the Post had a ton of credible information contradicting Hynes, and even though Hynes' office did not give the Post any way to verify his claims.

In theory, each one of these haredi pedophiles should have a record on the New York State's Courts' website. But there is no way to verify this unless the names are known. There is no way to search by zip code or type of offense.

So we really do not know how many haredi pedophiles were arrested or any other details of their cases past what we know about a handful of cases made public before this.

If Tzvi Gluck is right, it is almost certain that today a kid will be raped by a pedophile known to someone involved in Hynes' alleged deal – an Agudah gadol,  a haredi rosh yeshiva, Henna White, even Hynes himself. This pedophile may even be in the middle of his mandated treatment at Ohel, treatment that no matter who gives it or where it is given almost never works.

Until there is real proof to the contrary made public – the names of each of these "89" haredi pedopiles and the disposition of each case, along with proof of which victims were threatened, which intimidated, when and, if known, by whom – and this proof is closely checked and verified, what Tzvi Gluck said should be regarded as the presumptive truth.

It is also interesting to note that even with all the intimidation of haredi victims by haredi community activists and rabbis, there don't seem to be prosecutions for witness tampering or obstruction of justice or extortion.

Why that is the case is a question Edelman should have asked Hynes' office and should have answered in her article. But she didn't.

This was shockingly bad, unethical journalism.

And the people who will suffer the most from it are almost certainly little haredi boys.

Comments

[A. Nuran]

It's a Murdoch rag. What do you expect?

[different dave]

who comes to a story with a preconceived notion of what that story is, and tries to force the facts – and the people she interviews – to fit with her idea.

hmmmm sounds like a certain Anti-Religious blog author

[avraham]

Hi, the author of this blog does he same thing . When I pointed out to him that John Lennon was an antisemite. Shmarya said the the Jewish manager deserved it. Rav Avidor Miller says that the Ethiopians in Israel are 100 percent Goyim who have adopted Jewish customs. Shmarya wants to say that they are Jewish when he knows they are not. Rav Moshe says not to push them away but not to push them close. Where is the truth............................There are other sites that discuss Jewish child abuse. There is no reason for this site to exist other than to pay Shmarya's rent. It is a site for Chillul Hashem stories. Close the site and everyone will be happier

[Shmarya]

who comes to a story with a preconceived notion of what that story is, and tries to force the facts – and the people she interviews – to fit with her idea.

hmmmm sounds like a certain Anti-Religious blog author

Posted by: different dave | December 11, 2011 at 04:00 PM

Actually, I've broken more than a dozen stories related to Rubashkin.

And as much as you don't like what I write, time and time and time again I've been proven correct.

That would not be true for Susan Edelman or for this article.

[steve]

* 85 accused predators arrested since January 2009, two female
* 117 victims: 89 under age 17, the rest up to age 23, when the statute of limitations expires
* 47 cases pending; 38 closed
* 14 offenders sentenced to jail, from a month to 10-to-20 years
* 24 free—on probation, after pleading to lesser charges or after caseswere dismissed

We know that the 10-20 years (actually 10-32) is BM Lebovits. The identities of the other 13 allegedly "jailed", 24 free on probation and 47 "pending" remain a mystery. Hynes' refusal to divulge the names of these phantom pedophiles needs to be challenged for these predators pose a clear and present danger to the community. Where is the outrage????

[Shmarya]

Hi, the author of this blog does he same thing . When I pointed out to him that John Lennon was an antisemite. Shmarya said the the Jewish manager deserved it. Rav Avidor Miller says that the Ethiopians in Israel are 100 percent Goyim who have adopted Jewish customs. Shmarya wants to say that they are Jewish when he knows they are not. Rav Moshe says not to push them away but not to push them close. Where is the truth............................There are other sites that discuss Jewish child abuse. There is no reason for this site to exist other than to pay Shmarya's rent. It is a site for Chillul Hashem stories. Close the site and everyone will be happier

Posted by: avraham | December 11, 2011 at 05:09 PM

I wouldn't normally respond to a comment this illiterate, but I'll make an exception this time.

1. I did not say the "Jewish manager" deserved it. What I wrote is that Brian Epstein allegedly tried to seduce Lennon. When you include that key fact you left out of your little rant, Lennon calling Epstein a Jewish fag takes on a different light, and it makes it even more absurd to claim, as you did, that Lennon was an antisemite.

2. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein very clearly wrote Ethiopian Jews must be rescuced and must be treated as Jews and must be helped in every way. Before marrying into the rest of the Jewish people, however, questions about their status had to be resolved. Rabbi Feinstein that a giur l'humra (a conversion for the sake of stringency) would do that. (anyone interested can read Rabbi Feinstein's opinion along with other related information here.) One of the key points Rabbi Feinstein makes is that, even if they really are not Jews, we still have to save them and help them because they are suffering and dying because they think they are Jewish and their enemies think they are Jewish and are persecuting them because of it. Unfortunately, Rabbi Miller didn't care very much about who was murdered in his name or what Rabbi Feinstein ruled, just as he didn't care about how many innocent people were hurt with his words.

[jancsipista]

avraham- close youre stupid oppinion and dont come here, you are an idiot this is america and not youre tottalitarian village on monsey there is freedom of oppinion you imbacile dont you realise how stupid you are go a lick youre rebbes tohes.

[TheRealJoe]

Wow but I thought that Hynes is a tzadik who can do no wrong, he even goes out of his way to try extraditing a Chabad chassid from Israel, wake up if we don't trust Hynes on the very serious abuse issue, why should we trust him with Shuchats life.

[rabbi]

shmaraye, what intrest in ur opinion does the ny post have to cover up for the frum community?

[Shmarya's Evening Snack]

And since whne does the ex-lubab and ex-Hassid care what the heck happens to Haredi kids?

Desn't he wish their parents (and naturally, vile offspring) dissapear from the face of the earth??

(Or would that put him out of business?)

[Shmarya's Evening Snack]

Rabbi

You still don't get?

It's all part of the huge conspiracy - if there's anything out there that might be construed as positve toward the Hated Hassssssids, it must be part of the cover-up. Unless of course the Post writes a dirty piece on Rubashkin, then it's as if it's written in stone.

You can even ask Seymour, Shmarya's in-house yes-man.

[jancsipista]

Evening Snack- you tohes lecker go and lik youre rebbes tohes.

[Shmarya]

Wow but I thought that Hynes is a tzadik who can do no wrong, he even goes out of his way to try extraditing a Chabad chassid from Israel, wake up if we don't trust Hynes on the very serious abuse issue, why should we trust him with Shuchats life.

Posted by: TheRealJoe | December 11, 2011 at 06:18 PM

Because Hynes doesn't have control of Shuchat's life.

A judge and jury will – if he's ever extradited from Israel, where he ran to avoid justice.

[Shmarya's Evening Snack]

jancsipista

You have some gall to call me a tuches licker when the one who takes the art of tuches licking to a whole noew level is none other than the omnipresent
seeymour(evil)

I have no problem with constructive criticism but the obssesion and glee with which Shmarya does his muckrackin work is pathetic at best.

Not to mention that his whole agenda started because he got insulted that the rebbe of chabad didn't jump to action athis (Shnarya's) beck and call.

[Shmarya's Evening Snack]

Back to the article itself, Shmarya calls Tzvi Gluck an 'uber fixer' yet that status doesn't bother him from taking Tzvi Gluck's statements about Hynes at face value.

Journalistic ethics at its best

[Shmarya]

Back to the article itself, Shmarya calls Tzvi Gluck an 'uber fixer' yet that status doesn't bother him from taking Tzvi Gluck's statements about Hynes at face value.

Journalistic ethics at its best

Posted by: Shmarya's Evening Snack | December 11, 2011 at 09:21 PM

Please.

1. What Gluck said is against his personal interest, which gives it extra weight.

2. Even if it didn't, the fact that an insider who deal with the cops on a regular basis says he knows the cases were fixed is newsworthy.

3. The Post's responsibility was to print Gluck's claim, print Hynes' denial, and note Hynes' refusal to give the Post the data needed to determine if Hynes was telling the truth.

All of this should be easily understood, so much so that your comment should never have been written.

But it was.

Why?

Because your primary goal is to try to discredit me. The truth and even the lives of the kids in your own community are secondary.

[Shmarya's Evening Snack]

1) Uber fixers are notoriously unreliable even when they make such odd statemants. That being said, Tzvi Gluck has done more for Hareidi kids in his lifetime without besmirching the whole Orthodx community (as you regularly do) than you will ever accomplish with your hate blog. It's pretty clear from reading this blog that it's not the Hareidi kids you're out to protect.

2)My primary goal is not to discredit you. You're doing a heck of a job yourself... Any kid with half a brain can tell that you're a bitter person with a self-serving agenda which is NOT exactly to save Hareid kids from molesters (unless you really want them to live long so you can besmirch them when they grow up by pointing out every minor trangression with a magnifying glass).

3)I must give you credit for not censoring my comments, this is something that would never happen on VosIsNeisor Yeshivah World...

[Shmarya's Evening Snack]

And before you begin preaching me about putting the lives of kids in my community on the side burner, perhaps you should rethink all the hatred you shtup down those kids' throats about their parents being nutzoid fanatic savages who steal and molest for a living.

[Shmarya]

Posted by: Shmarya's Evening Snack | December 11, 2011 at 09:49 PM

In other words, that the Post simply omitted serious criticism of Hynes is okay with you because the person who pointed it out – me – is also the person who breaks a lot of stories about your community's criminals and about the bizarre pronouncements made by many of your leading rabbis.

And since exposing that corruption and craziness makes your community look bad – and look bad to the kids inside it who read me – attacking me for telling the truth is more important to you than the fact that the Post's report unfairly favors Hynes.

Of course, since Hynes is letting your community's pedophiles plead guilty to lesser charges and escape the jail time and sex offender registration they should be getting, and because he is doing this in a way that keeps their stories and your community out of the press, you really don't mind that the Post unfairly favored him.

And this is truly sad.

[Shmarya's Evening Snack]

Well, leat's just say the Post isn't the greatest source for ANY reliable information - good or bad.

You can't just pick and choose when to believe them (when the Haredim are condemned) and when the're covering up (when the story doesn't fit your ideas).

And you know what's really sad? That you actually believe that there's one sane objective individual out there who doesn't realize that you could care less about the hareidi molestees or those hurt by hareidi fraud and that this blog is anything more than a bitter person's way of getting back at those who he feels betrayed him (whether that's true or not is up for discussion - I have my reservations about the way Chbad handled you, but that's not for now)

[Shmarya]

Well, leat's just say the Post isn't the greatest source for ANY reliable information - good or bad.

You can't just pick and choose when to believe them (when the Haredim are condemned) and when the're covering up (when the story doesn't fit your ideas).…

Please.

The difference between a story I don't like and this story is that this story intentionally leaves out evidence against Hynes and White.

It isn't opinion or spin. It's fact.

That's what the Post did.

Unlike you, I'm not presuming why this action was taken, and I'm making no assumptions.

You on the other hand presume to know why I do what I do and what I care about or do not care about.

And without assuming anything, that speaks volumes about you, none of them good.

[jewishwhistleblower]

Clearly, the NY Forward was asking too many questions in regard to Hynes' claims that could not be answered without bringing embarassement to Hynes and his office. So Hynes looked for another journalist who could be use to put out the misinformation the forward hadn't.

[Shmarya's Midnight Snack]

No Shmarya, you're the one assumming the Post ommited it intentionally - for conspiritorial reasons that don't even add up. Since when is The Post in cahoots with the Hareidim and Zvi Gluck?

As far as your agenda, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that this obssesive mudslinging over and over is a direct result of your runin with chanad and your sebsequent departure of orthodoxy.

You can laugh at weird rabbis and outdated laws until your face turns blue, it still won't change the fact that you're clearly not in this game for the sake of my children or for the good of the Hareidi community.

You've long ago lost the forest for the trees.

It's not rocket science.

(Oh, yeah, And without assuming anything, that speaks volumes about you, none of them good.
Rotfl. Really? You mean I actually had a chance of being 'good' in your book, even though I'm an evil Hareidi?)

[Proton Soup]

so, how long will they be able to carry this on before a non-jewish offender is prosecuted and cries fowl using an Equal Protection argument because they were not given the Kol Tsedek treatment?

[jameslakes]

NY POST article, Monday 12.12.

"Orthodox sex abuse scandal
117 kid victims and 85 arrests in Jewish enclave"

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/orthodox_sex_abuse_scandal_Vzaqd3TbKtikUv0h6b3clI#ixzz1gJYvFOMQ

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/orthodox_sex_abuse_scandal_Vzaqd3TbKtikUv0h6b3clI

[Shmarya]

Posted by: jameslakes | December 12, 2011 at 04:21 AM

Those are the articles that are linked in my post – the articles I'm criticizing.

What does posting them here add?

[Shmarya]

No Shmarya, you're the one assumming the Post ommited it intentionally - for conspiritorial reasons that don't even add up. Since when is The Post in cahoots with the Hareidim and Zvi Gluck?

Please.

I never once gave a reason for what the Post did other than Edelman's penchant for deciding what the story is before she reports and making the facts fit her idea – or dropping them if they can't.

I made no allegations of any conspiracy and suggested no other reasons for why the Post did what it did.

But that doesn't stop you from trying to smear me with false accusation that I did allege a conspiracy and/or other reasons.

Past that, I never said the Post was "in cahoots" with haredim, and Tzvi Gluck – who is haredi – took a public position that opposes haredi leadership.

In other words, you don't even understand what I wrote, let alone its significance.

[Jeff]

As far as your agenda, it doesn't take a brain surgeon...

It's not rocket science.

Posted by: Shmarya's Midnight Snack | December 11, 2011 at 11:35 PM

That's good, because you certainly don't qualify for either.

[jewishwhistleblower]

Can anyone help with determining the names of the Brooklyn 85? Please post information and links here including status/resolution of case.

>* 85 accused predators arrested since
>January 2009, two female
>* 47 cases pending; 38 closed
>* 14 offenders sentenced to jail, from
>a month to 10-to-20 years
>* 24 free—on probation, after pleading
>to lesser charges or after cases were
>dismissed

I've determined that Nechemya Weberman is one of the 2 female alleged sex offenders mentioned.

Here is a rough list from earlier lists. Some information may not be up to date/accurate. Charges may have been dropped, pleas made etc. Some chages may be earlier than 2009.

1) Andrew Goodman
2) Zion Zuviv
3) Nechemya Weberman
4) Menachem Deutsch
5) Haim Feinhandler
6) Baruch Lebovits
7) Jerry Yechiel Brauner
8) Moshe Y. Vaisfiche
9) Chaim Feinhandler
10) Achia Rogalsky
11) Moshe F. Keller
12) Haim Feinhandler
13) Baruch Lebovits
14) Yona Weinberg (found guilty, sentenced)
15) Emanuel Yegutkin (trial scheduled)
16) Stephen Colmer (pled guilty and incarcerated - parole hearing 01/2010)
17) Yakov Kramer (dismissed?)
18) Arye Ickovits (pled guilty, awaiting sentencing)
19) Arthur Samet (pled guilty Aug19-09, awaiting sentencing)
20) Moshe Spitzer (trial scheduled)
21) Bernard Mutterperl (convicted and incarcerated - parole hearing 10/2017)22) Michael Sabo (pending)
23) Martin Vegh AKA Boorich Mordechai Vegg (convicted and incarcerated - parole hearing 07/2014 )

[jewishwhistleblower]

Add:

24) Joel Kolko

[jewishwhistleblower]

>I've determined that Nechemya Weberman
>is one of the 2 female alleged sex
>offenders mentioned.

Ignore theses lines that should not have been added to my post. Rabbi Weberman is not female.

[jewishwhistleblower]

Add:

25) Meir Dascalowitz

[jewishwhistleblower]

I'm not sure if Rabbi Gavriel Bidany counts as he was prosecuted/convicted in Brooklyn Federal court.

[jewishwhistleblower]

26) Joseph Passof

[jewishwhistleblower]

27) Rabbi Gershon Kranczer
28) Yechezkel Kranczer
29) Asher Kranczer
30) (minor, first name withheld by authorities) Kranczer

[jewishwhistleblower]

Unclear if Rabbi Yehuda Kolko should be counted due to his arrest in November 2010 in regard to a probation issue.

Also, should the failed extradition of Avrohom Mondrowitz put him on the list?

[jewishwhistleblower]

31) David Y. Greenfeld

[CALA NY]

They're just trying to drown out my blog with all the real truth about Henna White. It won't work.