Two Three men, at least two of whom are supporters of Rabbi Nechemya Weberman, the accused haredi child rapist on trial now in Brooklyn, were just arrested for taking pictures in the courtroom. The two men who are Weberman supporters took pictures of the alleged victim while she was on the witness stand and emailed them. The third man may have been a supporter of the alleged victim who took a picture of Weberman.
Rabbi Nechemya Weberman
Oren Yaniv, the NY Daily News reporter who's live tweeting the Weberman trial reports that:
2 people are being held for taking a picture of the alleged victim while she was on the stand and emailing it out
Pervaiz Shallwani of the Wall Street Journal, who is also tweeting the trial and who also reported the arrests, reports that:
Testimony has been stopped. All spectators have been cleared & been ordered by judge to check their phones.
Just before the incident that led to the arrest he reported that:
Update 3:02 pm CST – What appear to be supporters of Rabbi Nechemya Weberman are emailing the picture illegally taken in court today of the alleged victim and her husband along with wedding pictures of the couple.Accuser in #webermantrial has been grinding through 2nd day of cross-exam as defense attorneys continue to try and discredit her testimony.
Defense closes for the day with accuser in the #webermantrial. Girl is back tomorrow. Attorney focussed on past statements and credibility.
This is a clear and deplorable attempt to intimidate the girl, who has been otherwise unshakable on the stand.
Here is the photo illegally taken in court today. I blocked out the faces of the girl and her husband:
Update 6:13 pm CST – Three men were actually arrested. Here's a photo and cellphone video of them:
[Hat Tip for the video and the phota: Devorah.]
Update 10:48 pm CST – DNAInfo reported late this afternoon (and the NY Times confirmed several hours later) that four men, not three, were arrested. DNAInfo's Murray Weiss described the incident this way:
…Court officers suddenly spotted men in the audience snapping pictures on their cellphones of her.
The officers privately alerted Supreme Court Judge John Ingram, who asked the jurors to leave the room and allowed the guards to ask everyone in court to hand over their cellphones and other electronic gadgets.
Images of the victim were found on phones of four Hasidic men, who were immediately arrested and charged with judicial contempt, a misdemeanor, sources said. It's illegal to take photos in a courtroom without permission.
The men — identified as Joseph Fried, Yona Weisman, Abraham Zupnick and Lemon Juice — face up to a year in jail if they are convicted.
“Court officers observed audience members taking pictures with cell phone,” according to a court report. “Some of them may already have been uploaded to the Internet.”…
Of course, the picture was definitely uploaded and emailed, because as I noted above, it was emailed to me along with wedding pictures of the girl and her husband.
It's still unclear who is and who is not a Weberman supporter among those arrested today.
Two or the three hasidim are, from what I'm hearing (and from the use of the picture they took), Weberman supporters who took the pics with the intent of intimidating the girl in the hope that news that pictures of her taken moments before were now widely circulated electronically by people who seek to damage her.
The intent also appears to have been to frighten other alleged victims of Weberman (of which there are allegedly many) so they don't bring charges against Weberman or file lawsuits against him.
Lemon Juice (he changed his name from Weingarten, I think) appears to be a supporter of the victim. His pictures of the girl on the stand testifying – if he really did take them – may have been meant to a gift for her and her husband and as a memento for himself of someone courageous enough to stand up against the Satmar-CRC-Williamsburg intimidation machine and the alleged rapist it protects. (He may also have taken a picture of Weberman as he was forced to listen to the girl testifying against him.)
The base crime all four committed is the same, but the severity changes with the intent behind the actions and, of course, the use of the pictures taken and any other intimidation or witness tampering that may be linked to each man.
For example, if investigators find that one or more of them emailed the pictures to accomplices who used those pictures as part of a conspiracy to intimidate witnesses, the photographers could be charged as part of that conspiracy. Or if one or more of the photographers emailed the pictures to the girl's email account or to the account of her mother or her close friend, the base charged could be upped, as well.
The girl is scheduled to take the stand again tomorrow.