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Brooklyn Rabbi Menachem Tewel, 30, who is accused of molesting a young boy in New York years ago, will be returned to the Empire State for prosecution.
The married rabbi accused of molesting a boy in Brooklyn’s Chabad community appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom Thursday and agreed to return to New York for prosecution.
Rabbi Menachem Tewel, 30, was arrested Tuesday in Beverly Hills after Brooklyn prosecutors obtained an indictment last week charging him with 11 criminal counts, including a rap for felony sexual abuse.
New York authorities allege that Tewel molested the unidentified Brooklyn boy between 2005 and 2006, cops said in a statement.
Tewel wore a blue jail uniform and handcuffs Thursday as he was was remanded back to a Los Angeles County lockup without bail to await his trip east.
His lawyer, Dana Cole, asked the judge to reconsider her no-bail decision based on Tewel’s “rigorous dietary restrictions” and the argument that it would be “hard for him to maintain a healthy weight in county jail.”
Cole also offered to personally escort Tewel back to New York — but the judge wasn’t swayed.
“You can’t live with him 24/7,” the judge said, calling Tewel a “danger to the community.”
Tewel’s wife, Bracha Illulian, who married him last year, sat in the courtroom reading quietly from a prayer book throughout the hearing.
“Silence is a virtue,” she said when approached for comment by the Daily News.
The couple has an infant daughter who was brought into the courtroom briefly but was taken outside by another supporter.
“I can tell you one thing for sure, a lot of the stuff that has been said is false,” Tewel’s father-in-law, Rabbi Hertzel Illulian, told The News outside court. “A lot of this stuff is junk.”
Cole said his client is adamant that he didn’t commit the alleged crimes.
“He waved an identity hearing so he can get back to New York and contest these charges as soon as possible,” Cole said. “He wants to clear his name.”
The alleged Brooklyn victim is now a 22-year-old man who reported the abuse in September, police sources previously told The News.
He told New York cops that Tewel performed oral sex on him as far back as July 2005, when he was 14, the sources said.
Tewel allegedly molested the victim on numerous occasions inside his car until June 2006, the sources said.
The last alleged incident was inside Tewel’s car on Schenectady Ave. between Maple St. and Rutland Rd. in Prospect Lefferts-Gardens.
The statute of limitations for charging a person with sexual abuse expires when the victim reaches the age of 23.
Tewel now lives in Beverly Hills and was working at a Jewish youth center founded by Rabbi Illulian prior to his arrest.
An email sent by Tewel’s wife and obtained by The News urged supporters to join her Thursday night for a prayer meeting at the youth center.
The meeting was billed as a gathering “in honor of my dear husband who has been falsely accused,” the email said.
Allegations against Tewel gained public attention last year when the New York-based Jewish Community Watch added him to the group’s so-called “Wall Of Shame,” an online list of alleged sex predators.
An unidentified man later came forward to a group of Jewish community leaders gathered in southern California last August and alleged he was one of Tewel’s child victims, a rabbi who was present at the event told The News.
The 22-year-old man claimed Tewel abused him around 2004 when he was a teen and a student at the now-closed Shterns Yeshiva in upstate New York, The Jewish Journal reported.
Tewel was a mentor at the school, and he allegedly groomed his victim by acting as his exercise partner, the man reportedly said.
The man said Tewel came up with extreme ways to motivate him to work out harder, sometimes whipping him with a metal coat hanger, the Jewish Journal reported.
He claimed that later in the relationship, Tewel would crawl into bed with him at night and inappropriately massage him.
He also claimed Tewel bent him over and spanked him.
“He wasn’t exactly trying to hide the fact that he had an erection at the time,” the alleged victim reportedly told the Jewish Journal.
ndillon@nydailynews.com
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