A prominent Brooklyn rabbi was charged yesterday with molesting a 12-year-old girl over three years, authorities said. Nechemya Weberman, 52, of Williamsburg, pleaded innocent at his arraignment last night. Authorities said the shocking sex abuse, took place from 2007 until 2010.
Rabbi charged as perv
REUVEN BLAU and KEVIN FASICK • New York Post
A prominent Brooklyn rabbi was charged yesterday with molesting a 12-year-old girl over three years, authorities said.
Nechemya Weberman, 52, of Williamsburg, pleaded innocent at his arraignment last night. Authorities said the shocking sex abuse, took place from 2007 until 2010.
The alleged victim -- who was being counseled by the rabbi, a source said -- is now 16. The source said her parents contacted police.
Police said Weberman was charged with a criminal sex act, rape, endangering the welfare of a child and sexual abuse.
"When someone is a molester . . . it has to be dealt with," said Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn), who represents the predominantly Jewish Orthodox community of Borough Park.
"We have made some progress [in the community], but we have a very long way to go. Now is the time to stand up and do the right thing."
Weberman's lawyer, George A. Farkas, denied the charges, saying his client "has counseled troubled families in the past."
"It would be an injustice if people had any kind of belief that there was truth in these allegations," he said.
Update 11:44 am CST – Yerachmiel Lopin notes that Weberman is a leading and active member of Williamsburg's haredi modesty committee, the Vaad Hatzniyus. And, as ADDRebbe and ZIY mention in the comments below, Weberman belongs to a Chabad offshoot group, the Molochim, which still remains anti-Zionist, just as Chabad was from the 1880s through the early 1950s.
Update 12:09 pm CST – Yerachmiel Lopin tells me Weberman is the cousin of the Rabbi Weberman who is one of the Neturei Karta rabbis who went to Teheran to meet with Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.