Crown Heights Sentence Still Leaves Void for Family

For the family of Yankel Rosenbaum and the Jews of Crown Heights, the sentencing of Lemrick Nelson to 19 1/2 years in a federal prison isn’t a conclusive end to the saga they have endured.

The judge in the case tacked on an extra five years of probation for Nelson after he completes his sentence, out of concern that he will continue to be a menace after he is released.

Nelson’s sentence was announced Tuesday in a small Federal District Court in downtown Brooklyn, N.Y. The courtroom was jammed with his African American supporters on one side, and members of the Jewish community on the other.

His conviction for violating Rosenbaum’s civil rights came in February 1997, nearly five years after he was acquitted on criminal charges.

Nelson’s act was “one of blind, baseless bigotry and putrid violent hate,” said Fay Rosenbaum, the victim’s mother, as she addressed the court before his sentence was pronounced.

She and her husband, Max, traveled to the United States from Australia this week for the first time since the younger of her two children was murdered in 1991 on the streets of the neighborhood where he had come to continue his research on the Holocaust.

Rosenbaum was 29 when he was killed on the first of three nights of rioting in the neighborhood populated almost exclusively by blacks and Chasidic Jews.

“This is no closure,” Jacob Goldstein, a Lubavitcher and chairman of Community Board 9, which encompasses Crown Heights, said in a telephone interview, moments after the sentence was pronounced.

“As far as we’re concerned, there were more than 20 other thugs involved in that pack, and the feds seem to be saying that they got us one or two, and that’s all they’re willing to do.

“The investigation is dead, but until the other thugs are caught, we won’t feel like it’s over.”

Charles Price, also involved in Rosenbaum’s murder, has been found guilty of violating his civil rights, but no date has been set for his sentencing.

At the start of Tuesday’s court session, Judge David Trager denied a request by Nelson’s attorneys to set aside the indictment — he had earlier denied their requests that he recuse himself because he is Jewish and has close ties to the New York Jewish community.

Trager was appointed to the bench by a committee convened by U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and headed by Judah Gribetz, who now serves as president of the New York Jewish Community Relations Council.

It’s been nearly seven years since crowds of blacks rampaged through the streets of the Brooklyn neighborhood for three days, enraged by the death of a young boy who was hit by a Chasidic-driven car.

It was a hot summer night in August, 1991, when Nelson, then 16, and some 20 other people surrounded Rosenbaum after coming from the spot, seven blocks away, where Gavin Cato had just been killed.

Nelson and others spotted Yankel Rosenbaum on the street, according to court papers. One of them shouted, “There’s a Jew, get the Jew,” and they chased him across the street and attacked him.

During the melee, Nelson stabbed Rosenbaum and fled, leaving him bleeding in the street. Police caught up with Nelson a block later and found a bloody knife in his pocket.

In the hospital, the mortally wounded Rosenbaum identified Nelson as the person who had stabbed him. The Australian died the next morning.

Shortly thereafter, Nelson admitted to police that he had committed the stabbing, according to the documents.

He was charged in New York state court as an adult with second-degree murder.

Nevertheless, after a six-week trial, Nelson was acquitted in October, 1992. The jurors joined him in a celebratory dinner that night at a restaurant.

The dead man’s brother viewed that as a challenge, rather than the conclusion to his effort to find justice.

Norman Rosenbaum made at least five dozen trips from his home and family in Australia — where he works as an attorney and professor of law — to the United States, where he pressed federal officials to pursue an investigation and to have Nelson charged with violating his younger brother’s civil rights.

Rosenbaum and others, including U.S. Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.) lobbied hard for Nelson to be tried as an adult. Trager ruled in their favor, a decision that was upheld despite legal challenges by Nelson’s lawyers.

Meanwhile, the City of New York is negotiating a financial settlement with representatives of the Crown Heights Jewish community, who filed a class-action lawsuit against the city for failing to protect Jewish residents during the riots.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said last week he would apologize for the city’s handling of the racial rioting as part of the settlement.

The city’s top officials were derelict in their duty to protect all of their residents, according to the Lubavitch community and according to a 1993 report put out by state officials after an exhaustive investigation into the rioting that took place on the streets of one Brooklyn neighborhood, but echoed around the world.