Well, that didn’t work Sicko crime foe
Hasidic patrol founder faces fed kid-sex rap
The founder of a Brooklyn anti-crime patrol has been arrested and charged with coercing a 15-year-old girl to engage in illicit sexual conduct, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
Jacob Daskal, 62, was arrested Thursday morning on federal charges of transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.
Daskal is the founder of the Hasidic anti-crime patrol Shomrim Society in Borough Park.
In 2018, Daskal was charged with statutory rape of a teen, sexual abuse and other crimes.
He was arrested then for the alleged abuse that authorities said took place at Daskal’s Brooklyn home.
The federal case filed against Daskal on Thursday was for the same crimes, according to a law enforcement source.
Daskal’s lawyer, Henry Mazurek, said the new charges were “largely redundant.”
New evidence against Daskal, revealed that he traveled out of New York to rape the victim who was 45 years younger than him, prosecutors allege.
He went to Chicago for a 10-hour tryst with the girl in a hotel room in the fall of 2017, prosecutors said.
“The purpose of this trip was solely to have sex with this minor victim,” said Assis- tant U.S. Attorney
Erin Reid.
“We believe that this defendant, who crossed state lines to allegedly sexually assault a child, should be held fully accountable for his alleged conduct and we therefore worked with the federal authorities to bring charges in federal court, where the potential punishment is more severe,” said a spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.
State prosecutors plan to drop their case against Daskal so the federal case can move forward, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.
The sexual abuse allegedly took place between June and November 2017, with Daskal taking advantage of the girl at his homes in Brooklyn and South Fallsburg in Sullivan County.
When the girl moved to Chicago, the two texted and Daskal had her pose naked during video chats, and send nude pictures, prosecutors said.
He told the girl he loved her and told her not to tell anyone of their relationship, according to the feds.
“The victim was afraid of the defendant because of his position of power in her community,” Reid wrote in court papers asking that Daskal be held without bail before his trial.
If convicted, Daskal faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years and up to life in prison.
He was released Thursday by Federal Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo on a $4.5 million bond secured by some of his eight children and family properties.