Kolko Acquitted On Both Charges

Rabbi Yehuda Kolko has been acquitted on both counts of harassing a child he sexually abused years before.

The boy is now 13. He was in first grade when Kolko fondled his genitals.

Details of the case against Kolko.

More verdict details as they come in.

Update 7:29 am CDT – The Jewish Week adds:

…The jurors were not allowed to know anything about the underlying crime that led to the protection order in order to avoid prejudicing the case, and throughout the trial Rabbi Kolko’s lawyer, Jeffrey Schwartz, sought to portray the boy’s father as having a vendetta against the rabbi and seeking to manipulate the system to get him removed from the neighborhood.

Schwartz’s strategy seems to have worked. The one juror who agreed to speak to The Jewish Week said that she believed the case was “all nonsense” and that the allegations against Rabbi Kolko were “payback,” though she said the jury had not been allowed to speculate for what.

When the juror was told that Rabbi Kolko had been charged with sexually abusing the boy, she replied softly, “Oh, wow,” but quickly added, “there was no evidence for that.”…

The New York Post quotes Schwartz as denying after the verdict that Kolko had ever molested anyone:

Kolko, 66, was arrested in 2006 for allegedly touching the private parts of the boy and a first-grade classmate at a Flatbush yeshiva where he worked as a teacher.

"This destroyed his whole life without really any basis in fact," Schwartz said. "It basically got him thrown out of his profession."

Schwartz can say that because he's an unethical piece of garbage. He can also say it because Charles Hynes bullied both families into agreeing to a plea bargain that allowed Kolko to plead guilty to endangering the welfare of a child. He was not required to register as a sex offender and received three years probation and no prison time.

Hynes publicly claimed neither family wanted their child to testify. The families denied this and one wrote a letter to the DA the day after being bullied into the plea that tells Hynes the family wished Hynes would have allowed the case to go to trial, and says that their som was ready to testify.

Comments

[Lubavitchers are Christians]

Since we all know that the US justice system works great and is fair and just, aka Rubashkin's 25 years, this must have been the fair and just sentence in this case as well for Kolko.

Jeff, don't you tell me now that I'm a Kolko apologist. Kolko should rot in jail. Just need to point out how sometimes we get carried away claiming that the justice system is fair in Rubashkin's case, but then get carried away claiming haredim corrupt the system in other cases.

One second, I need to scratch my head....

[ah-pee-chorus]

this guy is the teflon-rav.

[thelion]

another disgrace from charlie hynes and brooklyn justice

[thelion]

not only that but torah temima just hired another man who has been fired from two yeshivas with a history of groping

[Seymour]

Remember this was a trail only if you violate the order of protection could not take the other issues of abuse into account

[Seymour]

Thelion how do you know you need to provide more info

[it's all about groping]

See "chasid shoyta 101" kooloytoyra

[SkepticalYid]

Posted by: Lubavitchers are Christians | June 26, 2012 at 03:39 PM

Yet even after a verdict like this, the Haredi sites will scream that the justice system is unfair because of SMR.

[Lawrence M. Reisman]

To Lubavitchers are Christians:

No one says that SMR's sentence was fair; it clearly wasn't. However, it was legal, which is to say that Judge Reade was allowed to impose it by law.

[thelion]

seymour

if you do some digging into the new hire you will be shoxked to find out that the in the past five years he has been to 3 places and each place he left was under a cloud and one place in order to get him to void the contract they agreed never to discuss the cases

look closely at the new hires for next year and do some homework

[Yochanan Lavie]

SMR is one thing, and Kolko is another. Two different judges; two different kinds of cases. In both cases, we must respect the rule of law even if we don't like the outcome.

[betz]

He's innocent. Rabbi Scheinberg said so.

[WoolSilkCotton, rock star and sports superstar]

Looking at it from a juror's point of view:

Violating a Restraining Order by giving the plaintiff a mean look, when the jury had no knowledge of why there was a restraining order in place?

They live in a crowded neighborhood where it's hard to avoid encountering someone you know.

Restraining Orders may allow "nonthreatening contact" between people who know each other.

Hard to believe any jury would convict someone of violating the RO with the information they were presented.

[dgf]

thang god

[WoolSilkCotton, rock star and sports superstar]

Perhaps tomorrow Kolko will be run over by a bus.

[Abracadabra]

Perhaps on Shabbos Kolko will choke on his chulent.

[shanda]

Anyone know when kolkoleft brooklyn to move to lakewood and why did he leave lakewood so abruptly to move back to brooklyn?

[ah-pee-chorus]

jury deliberated for 8 minutes. the case must have been really weak.

[Jake]

Hynes was trying to save his hynee with this prosecution.

[Yerachmiel Lopin]

wrote, "sometimes we get carried away claiming that the justice system is fair in Rubashkin's case, but then get carried away claiming haredim corrupt the system in other cases."

Haredim do better at corrupting the system in Brooklyn than in Iowa. Rubashkin's mistake was thinking he was still in Brooklyn in spitting distance of 770 when he was dealing with a higher authority (the feds) in Iowa. Kolko had the best of all worlds, a beholden DA and a jury which did not know the context and could not see the actual encounter. Still, I think Kolko will think twice before trying the same stunt again.

All I can say is I would not return his "good shabbos."

[Solly]

They acquitted him in a matter of 8 mins. It must have been a slam-dunk with charges that were just a waste of time.

Kolko will get his!! Mark my words, "Good times are coming to all victims of abuse"!! Stuff the world has not seen!

[Eli, what me messiah?]

You're not going to get a conviction in every case, unless you're in Soviet Russia. The point is that the case was prosecuted. If there are more prosecutions, there will be the occasional acquittals, fair or not.
Comes with the territory when things are working.

[Jeff]

Jeff, don't you tell me now that I'm a Kolko apologist. Kolko should rot in jail. Just need to point out how sometimes we get carried away claiming that the justice system is fair in Rubashkin's case, but then get carried away claiming haredim corrupt the system in other cases.

One second, I need to scratch my head....

Posted by: Lubavitchers are Christians | June 26, 2012 at 03:39 PM

It is hard to understand. I certainly can't say "Those Haredim! They did it again!", because it wasn't a bet din. I don't get it, either. Perhaps, as others are saying, Hynes deliberately prepared a weak case - or perhaps, as APC said , he's the "Teflon Rav". I've known people like that all of my life, people to whom nothing sticks. My father is like that (not that he's a child molester, just a narcissistic asshole). It's been driving me crazy for decades. It's one of the many, many things in life that, if they don't disprove the existence of your Invisible Friend, certainly render him irrelevant.

The worst thing about it is that that brave boy is going to walk away thinking there was no point in his coming forward and defying the Haredi community, weathering the condemnation. What are his parents going to tell him? What kind of message does this send? It reinforces what his teachers have likely told him, that the outside world can't be trusted - yet he's also learned that he can't trust the Haredi world, either. What's going to become of him? Whom can he trust now?

And that's to say nothing of the message it sends to other Haredi families who also would like to come forward, but just need a little encouragement.

If Hynes is in the pocket of the Haredi establishment, if he is throwing these cases deliberately, taking dives, then he needs to go. Now.

[David]

Kolko will eventually get what he deserves. It might take a bit longer - but believe me - he WILL GET WHAT HE DESERVES! AND THAT IS A PROMISE!

[LARRY]

RUMOR IS OUT THAT IT WAS JURY TEMPERING.
LETS WAIT, THIS IS NOT OVER YET THE WAY I HEARD THIS MORNING.
ONE OF THE JURORS FAMILY WAS IN THE COURT ROOM AND WAS SEATING WITH EDITH KOLKO SMILING AND LAUGHING AND SOMETHING IS GOING ON HERE.I HEARD THE F.B.I. WAS CALLED IN

[pinny the pedifile]

larry

fantasies and dreams !!!! this case is done and he beat it on the merits..

[Yochanan Lavie]

He was proven not guilty because of a reasonable doubt. It doesn't mean he's truly innocent. Only God knows that. I respect the verdict, as I must, but I wouldn't trust him.

[PrettyBoyFloyd]

Pretty amazing that's none of the victims' relatives hasn't taken this dog out yet. Don't they have male relatives that care about them??????

[Lubavitchers are Christians]

Pretty amazing that's none of the victims' relatives hasn't taken this dog out yet. Don't they have male relatives that care about them??????

Posted by: PrettyBoyFloyd | June 27, 2012 at 09:37 AM

I'm not sure how to understand your words. Is that a call to violence? Is that a call to taking the law into your own hands?

Jeff, what would you say to such a comment? I think you can agree that some comments go overboard. We need more civility here.

[Just thinking - NOT concluding]

So the Rabbonim,Agudah, Satmar, Lubavitch, Rebbes, Sheinberg should all rot in hell because they COVERED UP. Take him to court! They'll put him away for LIFE. That will be the solution for all our problems.

Oh. Well. The Rabbonim,Agudah, Satmar, Lubavitch, Rebbes, Sheinberg (from up there) MUST have bribed the right people.

We'll try again.

Or maybe one should heed Psaks

[Jeff]

Jeff, what would you say to such a comment?

I don't think he's serious; he's always rationalizing the shmutz coming out of that world.

[spacedout BT]

G-d forbid you should hurt him physically. That will turn him into another Hareidi martyr like Dr. DeHaan. He needs to be charge by other victims in a stronger case so he can confess publically