The Brooklyn hasid who really changed his legal name to Lemon Juice several years ago is suing a top aide of the Williamsburg Satmar Rebbe for impersonating him on Twitter and using that fraudulent Twitter account to tweet a photo of a child sex abuse victim taken as she testified against an unlicensed Satmar therapist, Nechemya Weberman, who sexually abused her over a several year period beginning when she was 12-years-old.
Above: The illegally emailed and tweeted photo of the victim in court, with faces blotted out as it was posted on the day the photo was taken on FailedMessiah.com. The photo was tweeted and emailed without the faces being blotted out
Lemon Juice Sues Satmar Rebbe’s Aide Over Fake Twitter Account, Arrest
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Lemon Juice may finally get his day in court.
The Brooklyn hasid who really changed his legal name to Lemon Juice several years ago is suing a top aide of the Williamsburg Satmar Rebbe for impersonating him on Twitter and using that fraudulent Twitter account to tweet a photo of a child sex abuse victim taken as she testified against an unlicensed Satmar therapist, Nechemya Weberman, who sexually abused her over a several year period beginning when she was 12-years-old.
The Satmar community lashed out that 17-year-old victim before, during and after the trial, depicting her as a missile about to strike the Satmar community and as a prostitute.
One of those who allegedly tormented and tried to intimidate Weberman’s victim was Moses Klein, the Williamsburg Satmar Rebbe Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum’s driver and close aide. Years ago, Weberman was Teitelbaum’s father’s driver and assistant.
Klein allegedly used a fraudulent Twitter account to tweet the illicitly-taken photo of the victim sitting on the witness stand.
The photo and the Twitter account got Lemon Juice arrested and charged with a crime. He had to post bail and then show up in court 14 different times for hearings until the case was finally dropped last spring after Lemon Juice was able show what prosecutors for the Brooklyn DA allegedly knew from the start – the Twitter account wasn’t his and he had nothing to do with the photo.
Two other Satmar hasidim were charged with contempt with Lemon Juice over the 2012 photo-taking and tweeting incident. Their charges were dismissed after the photo and other evidence found on their phones was excluded by a Brooklyn judge who ruled that a very recent US Supreme Court ruling issued long after the incident took place mandates that no phone can be searched by law enforcement without a warrant.
Some observers believe that because at least one of these men was seen trying to photograph the victim in court, and because of the fear that they had or were about to imminently distribute the photo via email and social media – which they apparently were and did – would put the victim at risk, the search of the phone was in fact legal. But Brooklyn DA Kenneth Thompson, who has been very weak on haredi child sex abuse and related issues, chose not to appeal.
After a court order was issued, Twitter gave Lemon Juice information about the fraudulent Lemon Juice account that linked it to a hospital where Klein volunteered, and other information showed the account was almost certainly Klein’s.
The Brooklyn DA, however, deemed the information insufficient, even though it likely could have gotten more information, if necessary.
“It was determined that we did not have sufficient evidence to prosecute," a spokesman for DA Ken Thompson told the New York Daily News.
Thompson’s office previously blamed the dismissal of charges against the other two Satmar hasidim involved in taking, tweeting and emailing the photo to the fact that the case was started under the previous DA, Charles J. Hynes, and had been mishandled then.
The Civil Complaint Filed Against Moses Klein By Lemon Juice, dated yesterday but filed today: