Lawyers for hasidic child sex abuse whistleblower Samuel Kellner are now
accusing Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes of pursing a
“blatant strategy of delay” to avoid exposing the “utter shamefulness”
of his case against the anti-child-sex-abuse activist “to the
electorate” before tomorrow’s Democratic primary.
Brooklyn D.A. Charles J. Hynes
Brooklyn D.A. Pursuing A “Blatant Strategy Of Delay” To Push Flawed Case Against Anti-Abuse Activist Sam Kellner Back Past Fall Election, Defense Attorney Reportedly Claims
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Lawyers for hasidic child sex abuse whistleblower Samuel Kellner are now accusing Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes of pursing a “blatant strategy of delay” to avoid exposing the “utter shamefulness” of his case against the anti-child-sex-abuse activist “to the electorate” before tomorrow’s Democratic primary, The Jewish Week reported today.
Hynes, who has held the D.A. post for 23 years, is in the toughest re-election fight of his career.
Kellner’s attorneys made the allegation in a letter to Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Ann M. Donnelly after finding out that Hynes’ prosecutors had received an additional two weeks to respond to a defense motion to dismiss all charges against their client from Donnelly without prosecutors or the judge notifying the defense before the extension was granted.
After a previous extension request by the D.A. was granted, the D.A.’s response to Kellner’s motion to dismiss was due on September 3 – one week before the tomorrow’s primary.
It is now due on or before September 17.
Responses to a motion to dismiss by the defense are usually pro forma and require no detailed exposition of case law or precedent.
“A motion to dismiss in the interests of justice requires defending the integrity of the case. It does not require a ‘law heavy’ response. Courts rarely grant these motions for the simple reason they seek a dramatic remedy: a court overruling prosecutorial discretion and dismissing a case because in its own judgment ‘it’s the right thing to do,” Mark Bederow, a former Manhattan prosecutor and defense attorney, told the Jewish Week.
Kellner’s scheduled trial was adjourned twice — both at the D.A.’s request and over the objections of Kellner.
The first adjournment was requested by the D.A. on July 8 – the day Kellner’s trial was set to begin. The second adjournment asked for by the D.A. was granted on July 29 – the next scheduled trial date.
Both adjournments were granted after Hynes’ prosecutors told the judge they needed additional time to investigate information they had allegedly recently obtained from their “core” witness – information that powerful supporters of accused haredi pedophile Rabbi Baruch Lebovits manipulated and pressured that witness into accusing Kellner of bribing him to testify against Lebovits. This supposedly “new” information was known to Hynes’ prosecutors for a almost one year. But in what appears to be clear defiance of the law, those prosecutors did not share that exculpatory information with the defense until late on Friday, July 5 – and only after The Jewish Week had reported much of that exculpatory evidence. Kellner’s trial was set to begin less than three days after the D.A. finally shared the exculpatory information with Kellner’s attorneys.
Prosecutors also reportedly found that a senior Lebovits supporter sent the “core” witness to Israel, controls his ability to travel back to the US, pays his rent, food and tuition expenses, and has near-complete control over the “core” witness’ life.
The “core” witness also reportedly accused NYPD Detective Steve Litwin of colluding with Kellner to force the “core” witness to fabricate his original claim against Lebovits. Even though Hynes’ prosecutors reportedly did not find the “core’ witness to be credible. Even so, Hynes referred the allegation to the NYPD’a Internal Affairs Bureau, which caused it to investigate Litwin. Hynes’ prosecutors then cited that Internal Affairs investigation as a pretext to to delay Kellner’s trial.
Kellner, a haredi anti-child-sex-abuse activist whose son was allegedly molested by Lebovits, allegedly paid a man to make false sex abuse claims against Lebovits. He is also accused of attempting to extort money from the Lebovits family in exchange for stopping other alleged victims and witnesses from coming forward.
But those charges are based exclusively on the “core” witness’ grand jury testimony – which now appears to have been perjured – and on a surreptitiously-made audio recording.
But the “core” witness has contradicted himself so many times, and the involvement of Lebovits’ key supporters is so evident, that the “core” witness’ testimony appears to have been rendered useless.
And the surreptitious audio recording, which allegedly documented Kellner extorting Lebovits’ son, has been shown to be poorly translated from Hungarian yeshiva Yiddish to English. Correctly translated, the recording appears to document Kellner talking to Lebovits’ son about a beit din (religious court) – not extortion.
As recently as July 24, Hynes made a public statement strongly indicating that he believes Kellner is guilty — seemingly a clear violation of ethics rules that prohibit prosecutors from offering opinions about the guilt or innocence of a suspect who has not yet been found guilty.
Referring to a July appearance by Hynes on Zev Brenner’s Talkline radio show, Mark Bederow, the former Manhattan prosecutor and defense attorney, told The Jewish Week that, “given the DA’s campaign appearance in which he ill-advisedly all but publicly pronounced Kellner guilty and faulted Kellner for all of the delays in the case, seven weeks seems like an awful lot of time for experienced prosecutors to respond to a formulaic motion which will likely be summarily denied. “
Kellner’s attorney was even more direct.
The district attorney made a “surreptitious request to delay this case further when, rather than respond in a court of law to Defendant Kellner’s motion to dismiss, it condemns him in public as guilty and blames him for the delay…A defendant, innocent until proven guilty, should not be loudly condemned as guilty by a [D.A.] trawling for votes,” Kellner’s attorney reportedly wrote Judge Donnelly.
Hynes has had a number of high profile cases fall apart, some due to alleged prosecutorial misconduct. He has also imprisoned at least one man who proseuctors arguably knew was innocent, and his office has been excoriated by federal judges for its conduct.
Hynes continues to maintain he and his office have done nothing wrong.