From: Subject: "Alleged Pedophile Held in Israeli Prison After Extradition Request from Brooklyn - Forward.com" Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 22:36:11 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; type="text/html"; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0000_01C82C8E.EA8D8320" X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3198 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0000_01C82C8E.EA8D8320 Content-Type: text/html; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Location: http://www.forward.com/articles/12077/ =EF=BB=BF "Alleged = Pedophile Held in Israeli Prison After Extradition Request from Brooklyn = - Forward.com"

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Home / News / Alleged Pedophile Held = in Israeli=20 Prison After Extradition Request from Brooklyn

Alleged = Pedophile Held=20 in Israeli Prison After Extradition Request from Brooklyn =

Anthony Weiss | = Wed. Nov=20 21, 2007

More than 20 years after he fled sex abuse charges in Brooklyn, = Abraham=20 Mondrowitz is sitting in an Israeli prison. And an Israeli judge has = ordered=20 that for now, that is where he will stay.

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New York City police have accused Mondrowitz, a member of the Gerer = Hasidic=20 ultra-Orthodox community, of molesting hundreds of boys when he was a = teacher=20 and counselor in Brooklyn during the 1970s and =E2=80=9980s. He was = arrested in=20 Jerusalem last Friday after America=E2=80=99s government requested his = extradition for=20 trial.

At an incarceration hearing last Sunday, Jerusalem magisterial judge = Shimon=20 Feinberg ordered that Mondrowitz be held in prison until November 27 = while the=20 American government updates its extradition request. The judge also = ordered a=20 report on whether Mondrowitz should then be allowed to serve house = arrest.

Anti-abuse activists hailed the news of Mondrowitz=E2=80=99s arrest = at a press=20 conference Friday, but Michael Lesher, a lawyer for six of = Mondrowitz=E2=80=99s alleged=20 victims, expressed concerned that Mondrowitz was placed under house = arrest.

=E2=80=9CHe does represent a flight risk. He does represent a public = danger,=E2=80=9D Lesher=20 told the Forward. =E2=80=9CI hope the court would take whatever steps = are necessary to=20 ensure that Mondrowitz does not escape justice.=E2=80=9D

The extradition proceedings are a major new development in a case = with a long=20 and tortured history. In 1985, Mondrowitz was indicted in Brooklyn on = five=20 counts of sodomy and six counts of sexual abuse, but he fled the country = and=20 settled in Israel. The Brooklyn district attorney=E2=80=99s office = attempted to=20 extradite him, but that proved impossible under Israeli law at the time: = The=20 charge of sodomy did not then fall under the Israeli definition of = rape.

Israel=E2=80=99s legal definition of rape changed in 1988, but when = Charles Hynes=20 took over as Brooklyn district attorney in 1990, his office dropped = extradition=20 efforts, stating that the crime had occurred before the change in law = and that=20 the law could not be applied retroactively.

Lesher and anti-abuse activist Amy Neustein mounted their own = campaign to=20 pressure Hynes=E2=80=99s office, contacting politicians and the media. = Over the past=20 year and a half, several articles and television programs brought new = attention=20 to the Mondrowitz case.

Lesher and other activists argued at the Friday press conference that = the=20 delay in extradition was political, not legal. They also said that Hynes = had not=20 pushed the case because he didn=E2=80=99t want to antagonize = Brooklyn=E2=80=99s politically=20 powerful Orthodox Jewish population.

The United States is now attempting to extradite Mondrowitz under a = new,=20 broader extradition treaty with Israel that went into effect this past = January,=20 making extradition possible for all crimes with a penalty of more than a = year.=20 According to a spokesman, the Brooklyn district attorney=E2=80=99s = office promptly filed=20 its extradition request with the State Department after the new = extradition=20 treaty went into effect. The Justice Department formally requested = Mondrowitz=E2=80=99s=20 extradition from the Israeli government in September.

The Israeli judge expressed concerns this week over trying Mondrowitz = for=20 charges that were filed more than 20 years ago. Lesher argued that it is = standard to stop the clock on the statute of limitations when the = suspect flees=20 the jurisdiction in which he was charged, as Mondrowitz did. He called = the=20 timeliness issue, which Mondrowitz=E2=80=99s lawyers had raised in = court, =E2=80=9Cthe reddest=20 of red herrings.=E2=80=9D

The judge stated in his ruling this week that in addition to the = extradition=20 request, Mondrowitz had been found in possession of child pornography = films. In=20 Israel it is illegal to possess child pornography.

Wed. Nov 21, 2007 =