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Prosecutors say he was a feared power broker in the most insular of Orthodox Jewish sects in Brooklyn who thought he could get away with anything — including the alleged sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl.
That’s the argument an impassioned prosecutor made to jurors yesterday as the nearly two-week-long sex-abuse trial of Hasidic counselor Nechemya Weberman drew to a close.
“What happens in the defendant’s office stays in the defendant’s office,” Assistant DA Linda Weinman said, referring to the secrecy surrounding the small room where Weberman, 54, allegedly forced himself on the girl — and where he also admittedly hosted pretty young Satmar women.
Prosecutors argued that the now 18-year-old alleged victim was terrified to report the three years of abuse because of Weberman’s exalted status in the cloistered Satmar sect in Williamsburg.
“Who’s going to believe a 12-year-old girl?” Weinman said in Brooklyn Supreme Court. “She was afraid. She believed he was a member of Vaad Ha’Tznius.”
Weberman has denied he was ever a member of Vaad Ha’Tznius, the “modesty” committee that enforces Satmar rules and dress codes — and in his lawyer’s closing remarks, she downplayed his power among the ultra-Orthodox.
“They want you to believe Mr. Weberman is the ‘Vaad-father,’ ” quipped attorney Stacey Richman, who compared the prosecution of her client to the Salem witch trials and the Red Scare of the 1950s.
“If Mr. Weberman’s so powerful, why can’t he keep [her] in school?” said Richman, referring to the multiple schools the teen was asked to leave while receiving counseling from Weberman.
Richman also hammered away at the prosecution’s lack of physical evidence.
“The only evidence in this case is the word of [the alleged victim]. That’s it,” Richman said, questioning why years of frequent alleged sexual abuse failed to leave any e-mails, witnesses or DNA.
“Three years of oral sex? That’s a lot of semen!” she said.
“We’ve all seen ‘CSI,’ Richman said, referring to the TV crime-lab show. “DNA lasts forever.”
Richman said the teen falsely accused Weberman because she was angry that he had told her father that she had an older boyfriend.
Judge John Ingram barred the defense from telling the jury that her father then secretly filmed his daughter and her boyfriend having sex and used the footage to have the boyfriend arrested for statutory rape, infuriating the teen.
Weberman “listened to her. He was truly her friend. But when she found out that she had been betrayed, she went wild,” Richman said. “It’s all about revenge.”
Prosecutors scoffed at the notion that the teen had an ulterior motive for reporting Weberman.
“She said, ‘I had a responsibility. I didn’t want anybody else to go through what I went through,’ ” ADA Weinman said, quoting the teen’s testimony last week. “Those are not the words of someone seeking revenge. They are words of pain.”
Richman also used the O.J. Simpson defense tactic of “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit,” showing photos of a faulty lock on a door that the victim claims trapped her inside Weberman’s office.
“It doesn’t fit. It never fit,” Richman said.
Hasidic women supporting Weberman in court buried their heads in their hands and prayed when prosecutors described graphic sexual acts. One prayed so loudly a court officer shushed her.
The jury will begin its deliberations today. Court will end early for the Jewish Sabbath.