Mikve-peeping DC rabbi also had extramarital relations
In addition to secretly recording women undressing for the mikve (ritual bath), Rabbi Barry Freundel engaged in sexual encounters with several women, according to prosecutors.
This is one of several new details about the mikve-peeping rabbi to emerge from two documents filed in Washington DC Superior Court on May 8 in an attempt to sway the judge’s sentencing, shed new light on Freundel’s behavior, and offer some particulars about the rabbi’s life since his arrest on October 14, 2014 – including that he has resumed some rabbinic teaching.
Freundel pleaded guilty in February to 52 counts of misdemeanor voyeurism for installing secret cameras in the shower room of the mikve adjacent to Kesher Israel, the prominent Washington Orthodox synagogue he led for some 25 years.
He used one to three cameras, hiding the devices in a digital clock radio, a tissue box holder, and a small tabletop fan, and aiming them at the toilet and shower in the mikve dressing room, according to the prosecution’s memo.
In addition to these crimes, Freundel videotaped himself engaged in “sexual situations” with “several women” who were not his wife, according to the memo. Many of the women may not have consented to being taped or were not aware that they were being recorded.
The prosecution memo notes that, in addition to the hidden cameras at the mikve, Freundel surreptitiously videotaped a domestic violence abuse victim in the bathroom and bedroom of a safe house that he had established for her so she could escape her husband’s violence.
“I thought I saw a holy man of God, a man whom I could trust to protect me from outside evils, but I have come to see the blackness which hid beneath the garments,” the victim said in a court document. “The dreadful symptoms I once banished have returned. I cry when I am awake, and I scream out against the darkness in the nightmares of my sleep. I have constant flashbacks of the worst times of my life, as I am forced to repeatedly relive the horrors I once knew. I dare not look at myself unclothed in a mirror, for it is a glaring reminder of what was taken and stolen.”
Each count of voyeurism carries a potential penalty of one year in prison and a fine of $1,000 to $2,500, or both. In their memo, prosecutors argue for a 17-year prison sentence.
As a conversion supervisor and mentor, Freundel instructed many women to engage in “practice dunks” at the mikve – an unheard-of practice in Orthodox Judaism.
“As many victims note, it was difficult if not impossible to say no to the rabbi in charge of their conversions,” the prosecution’s memo says. “Many of the victims now feel isolated from their faith entirely, including other religious leaders, as a result of the defendants’ actions.” ( JTA)