Yehudah Friendlander, a New York rabbi’s assistant, has been sentenced to 22 months in a federal prison for sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl who sat beside him on a flight from Australia to Los Angeles.
He sentence will begin Feb. 20.
Friedlander, who has five children, had earlier pleaded guilty to a federal charge of abusive federal contact with a minor. The rabbi’s assistant touched the girl’s breast and genitals during the May 31 flight.
“My reputation and my life as I knew it is gone,” Friedlander, 44, said to U.S. District Judge Spencer Letts last Friday at the sentencing. “What I did to this victim and all the other victims in this case, such as my family, is inexcusable.”
Friedlander is the assistant to Rabbi Israel Grunwald, who leads the Pupa Chasidic community in Borough Park, N.Y.
Grunwald also had been arrested in the incident, but charges were later dropped.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
