Case of Shmuel Dym
(AKA: Samuel Dym)
(AKA: Samuel Dym)
Monsey, NY
____________________________________________________________________________________
Disclaimer: Inclusion in this website does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement. Individuals must decide for themselves if the resources meet their own personal needs.
Table of Contents:
2013
- Guilty pleas in Orthodox sex cases offer hope (01/20/2013)
- Monsey man gets probation for sex abuse of 2 boys (02/07/2013)
Also see
Convicted sex offender, who admitted in court that he improperly touched an 8-year-old boy between May 2010 and July 2011, and a 6-year-old between September 2010 and July 2011.
Guilty pleas in Orthodox sex cases offer hope
2 from Jewish community admit to abusing boys
By Steve Lieberman
The Journal News - January 20, 2013
NEW CITY — Two members of Rockland’s Orthodox Jewish
community recently pleaded guilty to charges of sexually abusing
children, heartening children protection advocates who have been pushing
for increased awareness and prosecutions of such cases. A third man is
facing pre-trial hearings in County Court.
A 58-year-old Monsey man admitted in court Friday that he had anal sex with a 14-year-old boy.
The admission came after a judge promised the man a sentence of 10 years’ probation to spare the child from having to testify.
Moishe Turner of 5 Dana Road, a heavy-set man with a long beard streaked with gray, had been accused of having anal and oral sex with the boy on seven occasions during July 2011.
Turner was the second person who avoided incarceration last week by pleading guilty to a sexual crime involving a child. He has been free on $75,000 bail and awaits sentencing March 19.
Herschel Taubenfeld, 33, once a teacher in the New Square Hasidic community, admitted to forcible touching of a young boy in 2011. The admission came in exchange for six years’ probation on a misdemeanor charge handled in New Square Justice Court.
Taubenfeld
originally had been charged in December 2011 with 10 counts of
forcible touching, 10 counts of endangering the welfare of a child and
10 counts of third-degree sex abuse, all misdemeanors.
Another man, Dovid Kohn, 59, of Monsey, faces 40 criminal counts of having oral sex with a girl when she was between 12 and 15. Kohn is challenging telephone conversations between him and the girl taped by police as inaudible at pretrial hearings in Rockland County Court. Prosecutors and Ramapo police said the girl, now in her 20s, remains a witness in the case.
Shmuel Dym, 32, of Monsey is fighting his guilty plea to sexually molesting a boy. Supreme Court Justice William Kelly has twice turned down Dym’s request to withdraw his guilty plea.
The increased prosecution of sex attacks on children within the Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox community has been welcomed by advocates for children. The advocates said police and prosecutors are just skimming the surface, arguing there are unreported sexual attacks on children.
“The epidemic of child-molestation threatens an entire generation of
children,” said Monsey-based Rabbi Noson Leiter, founder of Help Rescue
Our Children. “Many of these molesters are arrogant, narcissistic,
deceptive, and downright evil. Even though some of them appear unable to
control themselves, that is because of choices they repeatedly and
intentionally made.”
Leiter, a leader of Torah Jews for Decency in Monsey, said Taubenfeld’s guilty plea “is a trail-blazing case — the first in which a survivor from within New Square prosecuted a molester within the community.”
He said he hopes other families will find the strength to come forward and fight off community pressure not to report sexual abuse. He praised the Ramapo police for their efforts when told about children being abused.
“Taubenfeld’s own admission to molestation charges also confirms that current New Square leadership clearly failed to stop this vile, manipulative ‘educator’ and is unqualified to deal with the molestation crisis,” Leiter said.
Rockland District Attorney Thomas P. Zugibe said the religious community has been more open with police and prosecutors. He said historically the major issue confronting law enforcement was the “insular community often protected the accused at the expense of the victims.”
Zugibe said he was encouraged by the Taubenfeld case. He said families in the religious community have “recognized finally that if you protect the victims all you are doing is creating a new generation of offenders and victims.”
“In the latest cases, particularly Taubenfeld, I have to credit the community for being more forthcoming,” Zugibe said. “We have a long way to go. I am hopeful this is a new trend.”
Families face being kicked out of the religious community and having their children denied schooling and services.
The family of the boy abused by Turner faced pressure from the community leaders to drop out of the case, authorities said.
Prosecutor Jennifer Parietti said Friday in court that Zugibe approved the no-prison sentence for Turner.
Turner faced seven years in state prison under the felony charge. The case was down for a pretrial hearing with Ramapo Detectives Peg Braddock and Robert Fitzgerald ready to testify.
She told Kelly that she supported the sentence “to spare this victim the difficulties of the trial.”
“The victim is under tremendous pressure,” she said. “This plea will relieve that.”
Turner admitted he had anal sex with the boy under questioning from Parietti in July 2011. He admitted he knew the boy was 14, making him incapable of consent under the law.
Turner’s lawyer, former District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz, said after court that he’s not aware of any rabbi or religious community leader putting pressure of the boy or his family.
Turner,
who prayed before court, doesn’t speak fluent English. He speaks
Yiddish and needed a translator to tell him what was discussed in court
and for his responses.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Monsey man gets probation for sex abuse of 2 boys
By Steve Lieberman
LoHud - February 7, 2013
A 32-year-old Monsey man will face a sex offender classification
hearing next month, after being sentenced Thursday to 10 years’
probation for sexually abusing two young boys.
Shmuel Dym is appealing a guilty plea to two felony sex-abuse charges.
Dym
originally accepted a no-jail sentence offered after the family came
under pressure from local rabbis and other members of the religious
community not to testify, prosecutor Patricia Gunning told the judge
during sentencing in the Rockland County Courthouse in New City.
“The
parents of the two boys in this case — ages 8 and 9 — urged us to
recommend this disposition,” Gunning said of the probationary sentence,
“to spare their sons from ... testifying ... and to alleviate the
pressure on the family.”
Dym declined to speak during the sentencing or afterward, at his lawyer’s request.
The
Hasidic Jewish culture has become an issue in sex-abuse cases across
New York City and suburbs like Rockland County, specifically since many
Orthodox Jews believe they can’t testify against members of their
community and could be ostracized for doing so. Several sex offenders
have recently been prosecuted in Rockland and have received prison
sentences, while others have gotten probationary sentences.
Rockland
District Attorney Thomas Zugibe has said the family of the two boys
withstood pressure from some leaders in their ultra-Orthodox Jewish
community and spoke to Ramapo police and investigators. Other community
religious members urged them to cooperate, he said.
Dym
pleaded guilty June 14, 2011, to two counts of second-degree course
of sexual conduct against a child, a felony, and two counts of
endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor.
He
admitted in court that he improperly touched an 8-year-old boy between
May 2010 and July 2011, and a 6-year-old between September 2010 and July
2011. He was represented by Kenneth Gribetz and Deborah Wolikow
Loewenberg.
Dym
decided to recant his admissions and wanted a trial. He retained
attorneys Thomas Pavlinic of Maryland and Patrick J. Jennings of New
Jersey, who contended there might be evidence clearing Dym that he
didn’t know about when he pleaded guilty.
Supreme Court Justice William Kelly ruled Dym voluntarily pleaded guilty after being told of his constitutional rights.
Jennings said Thursday that Dym “continues to maintain his innocence.”
Jennings said an appeal would soon be filed with the state Appellate Division.
Dym
could be classified as one of three sex-offender levels following a
March 11 hearing. A Level 3 means one is considered a high risk to
repeat the sexual offense, compared to a moderate risk of Level 2 and
low risk of Level 1.
____________________________________________________________________________________
FAIR USE NOTICE
Some of the information on The Awareness Center's web pages may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.
We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml . If you wish to use copyrighted material from this update for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
____________________________________________________________________________________
"Never
doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret
Mead
____________________________________________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment