Court rules to extradite alleged U.S. serial molester Mondrowitz
By Ofra Edelman, Haaretz Correspondent
Alleged child molester Avrohom Mondrowitz can be extradited to the
United States, the Jerusalem District Court ruled on Sunday.
Mondrowitz, a member of the Ger Hassidic sect in Brooklyn who posed
as
a rabbi and psychologist specializing in treating troubled children, fled
to
Israel in 1984 as New York law enforcement authorities were preparing to
arrest him.
In 1985 he was charged with sodomy and other *** crimes against five
minors, aged 9 to 15, from the ultra-Orthodox community in Brooklyn. The
case first came to light after a re****t in Haaretz Magazine (November 17,
2007).
The U.S. Justice Department twice applied for his extradition, but
legal hurdles prevented this until now. The first extradition request was
denied because at the time, 22 years ago, sodomy was not an extraditable
offense under the Israeli American extradition treaty.
The treaty was amended in January 2007, making it possible to
extradite anyone who has been charged with a crime that carries more than
a
one-year prison sentence.
The U.S. submitted a second extradition request in September 2007,
and
two months later Mondrowitz was arrested in Jerusalem.
In Sunday's court decision, Judge Nava Ben Or ruled that since legal
reasons prevented bringing Mondrowitz to justice, the statute of
limitations
on the crime with which he was charged stopped running the moment
Mondrowitz
arrived in Israel.
With the statute of limitations still valid, she ruled, he can be
extradited to the U.S.
|
