After repeated postponements issued at the request of Brooklyn D.A. Charles J. Hynes' prosecutors due to lack of credible evidence against Samuel Kellner, last week, prosecutors told Kellner's attorneys that they would be dropping the case against Kellner. But then Friday, prosecutors called back to tell Kellner's attorneys that Hynes and Rackets Bureau chief Michael Vechhione – Hynes close friend and top assistant – had stepped in, demoted and transferred them and were continuing the case. In court this morning, a new prosecutor asked for and received another trial dealy – until…
After repeated postponements issued at the request of Brooklyn D.A. Charles J. Hynes' prosecutors due to lack of credible evidence against Samuel Kellner, last week, prosecutors told Kellner's attorneys that they would be dropping the case against Kellner.
In court this morning, a new prosecutor asked for and received another trial dealy – until the first week of January.
Hynes will be out of office by then and his successor, Kenneth Thompson, will almost certainly ask for the charges against Kellner ot be dismissed.
When he does, the attorneys representing accused hasidic pedophile Rabbi Baruch Lebovits – Hynes' and Vecchione's close friend Arthur Aidala (who hosted a fundraiser for Hynes a couple weeks ago) and Alan Dershowitz – will almost certainly claim that dismissal was a political act done by Thompson to repay anti-child-sex abuse activists who backed him in the recent election.
That nothing could be further from the truth is unlikely to stop these two attorneys from making that obscene claim.
It is well documented that the case against Kellner was, as one source told me, complete shit from day one.
There was no credible evidence against Kellner and what evidence there was has turned out to be purjured, mistranslated and outright false, and almost all of that stinking mess came directly from Dershowitz, Aidala and Lebovits' close family and supporters.
Desrshowitz used the indictment against Kellner to help get Lebovits' child sex abuse conviction overturned. He also used the prosecution's failure to turn over evidence to the defense – evidence that actually weakens Lebovits' lone character witness – and the judge's handling of that Rosario violation.
The Rosario violation was exceedingly weak.
Would the judge's mishandling of it been enough to overturn the verdict against Lebovits if the Kellner indictment was not part of the mix?
Maybe not.
Observers believe Hynes will offer Lebovits a sweetheart plea deal in the next week or two – something he would not be able to easily do if the Kellner case had been properly dismissed.
So, no matter how this plays out, in the end it is the false evidence from Dershowitz, Aidala, et al, against Kellner that has been the most beneficial for Lebovits, who may end up walking free after molesting – if the haredi street and alleged victims are to be believed – dozens if not hundreds of haredi boys over decades.
The appeals panel that overturned Lebovits' conviction noted the evidence against Lebovits was strong – even though a smoking gun tape recording in the D.A.'s posession (made by an alleged Lebovits' victim under the supervision of the NYPD) that records Lebovits apparently admitting that he sexually abused a boy was inexplicably not used as evidence against Lebovits at trial.
A defense attorney must defend his client zealously.
The question, I'm told, that Hynes, Vecchione, Aidala, etc., need to worry about is whether the US Attorney is doing his job with zealousness to match.