As Kellner Case Collapses, Abuse Advocates Mobilize

As Kellner Case Collapses, Abuse Advocates Mobilize

New demands that ‘unfounded charges’ against abuse whistleblower be dropped.  07/10/13 Hella Winston

With the Brooklyn district attorney’s case against chasidic sex abuse whistleblower Sam Kellner seemingly falling apart amid mounting evidence that Kellner’s main accuser may have been manipulated and paid to lodge false charges against him, sexual abuse survivors and advocates are taking to the streets to protest the DA’s conduct in the case.

Abuse survivor, advocate and writer Chaim Levin has organized a protest for Thursday outside the Jay Street offices of Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes to support Kellner and, according to Levin’s Facebook post about the protest, “demand that the unfounded charges against [Kellner] be dropped immediately.”

In an interview with The Jewish Week on Tuesday, Levin said that Kellner — who reported his son’s allegations against Baruch Lebovits to police and helped bring forward more alleged Lebovits victims to the DA — is “paying a really big price for what he did and we need to stand up for him.”

“He did more than my parents did,” Levin continued. “He reported a crime. He lost his job, his housing, for a case where they have nothing on him. And we still don’t have any idea about what is happening with Lebovits.” (Lebovits, a cantor and prominent member of the Munkacs chasidic community, was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to 10 to 32 years in jail; his conviction was overturned on a technicality and no new trial date has been set.)....
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new-york-news/kellner-case-collapses-abuse-advocates-mobilize