Four haredi Orthodox men in Brooklyn were charged with attempting to intimidate and bribe an alleged sexual abuse victim and her boyfriend in a criminal case against a local counselor.
According to the indictment filed June 21, Abraham Rubin, 48, offered the alleged victim and her boyfriend $500,000 to recant testimony against Nechemya Weberman, an unlicensed psychotherapist awaiting trial on charges of sexual abuse. Weberman has been accused of 88 counts of sexual misconduct and allegedly molesting the victim in his home and office when she was aged 12 to 15.
Rubin and brothers Joseph, Jacob, and Hertzka Berger pleaded not guilty on charges of bribing a witness, witness tampering, coercion and aggravated harassment at their arraignment in New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn and were released on bail, according to reports.
This is the first case resulting from a new task force to address witness intimidation and harassment in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes established the task force in May in response to news media reports that the community regularly hid cases of child sexual abuse from the authorities.
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