SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) — An Australian man has been charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old Jewish girl from an Orthodox school in Melbourne in the 1980s.
Donald Cornell, who in the 1980s was a bus driver for the Orthodox Adass Israel School and the Yeshivah Center, was charged with six counts of indecent assault last month. Cornell, who is not Jewish, was due to appear before the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court on Friday. But the case was adjourned due to health reasons.
Manny Waks, a child sex abuse victim and founder of Tzedek, a support group for Jewish survivors of child sex abuse in Australia, said, “We commend the brave victim for taking steps to ensure that justice is achieved and to protect other children, and hope it will give other victims the strength to come forward.”
Both Adass and Yeshivah, which is run by Chabad, have been rocked by other sex abuse scandals. In 2008, then-principal of Adass Israel Malka Leifer fled to Israel after allegations that she abused several girls.
David Kramer and David Cyprys, two Jewish men who were employed by Yeshivah, will face trials later this year on multiple counts of child sex abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s.
