I received an informative and interesting email response to my post, Dear God, from a gentleman named Benny Forer. Benny Forer is a Deputy District Attorney in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office and an Orthodox Jew. He is also an advocate against child abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community. I asked for his permission to post his response on my blog, and he graciously agreed.
Benny Forer – Deputy District Attorney, Los Angeles County
There are litmus tests in life that often indicate the truthfulness of certain situations. We subconsciously utilize these things to enable us to make decisions daily.
For example, everyone likes to say the (Nechemya) Weberman case was a he said/she said situation, so how can a jury convict? I always use the example of a child. If a member of your shul walked up to you and told you they saw your child hitting another child, and when questioned, your child says it’s not true, it never happened – who would you believe? Would you say it’s a he said/she said, and therefore, no one can be believed? Situations, biases, etc. matter.
We have freedom of speech laws, but that doesn’t give free reign to severely libel someone publicly. Furthermore, most of those “libeled” have their very business severely harmed. Yet, we never see any of the “falsely accused” predators taking the libeler to court or beis din. They never do anything to clear their names. They simply deny any and all allegations. That’s a very good litmus test of truth. If someone posted that I was a child molester, you can be sure that I’d immediately file a lawsuit, ask for a temporary restraining order to take down the site and do everything in my power to hold the lying disseminator responsible. Yet, we never see predators or their families doing this.
I often get told that a (now defunct) Jewish Community Watch’s post isn’t true and that Meyer Seewald is a bastard. I always tell these people that they should do some real tzedakka and give a ton of money to the accused predator to help him clear his name. No one ever takes me up on the offer. The real reason? They know he’s guilty; they’re just upset at the exposure, and aren’t offended by his guilt.
I’ve always avoided the “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” analogy. I’m a prosecutor, and in addition to prosecuting thousands of cases, I’ve also rejected and dismissed many cases. I know that overwhelmingly, those cases were dismissed due to procedural error or insufficient evidence, not because of “innocence.” Nevertheless, I always begin my analysis with “the person is innocent.” Thus, I really dislike the analogy. Having said that, I do utilize various common-sensical rules at my disposal to evaluate a case or an incident.
The primary dilemma with sex-abuse exposures is keeping the anonymity of the victims. Because of the effort to protect the victims by not revealing data on them, the predator’s defenders get to make many claims. The problem with revealing the victim, is that it would notify these supporters whom to harass. We don’t notify, and certainly the predator won’t notify–because telling his supporters the identity of the victim, is admitting guilt. Obviously, this is something they don’t want to do. Moreover, since I’m aware that most predators have many victims, the few that do come forward are usually not the only ones. Thus, a notification might prevent other victims from going public; especially if they see that coming forward means bullying, blackmailing, or a compromise to their safety.
In most cases of “allegations” that I’m aware of, at some point, information regarding the person’s guilt will come out. I’ve been confronted by people supporting almost every predator on JCW’s wall. A simple Google search on 90% of them will reveal the truth. Whether it’s a conviction, an arrest, or whether the victim chose to publicize their story in the media. Regardless, in every case I’ve ever been involved with, I’ve been told that the crime is a mistake/misunderstanding/false/etc.
In our internet history, there is one single case where the person sort of exonerated himself – Rabbi Glick in Australia. A) The allegations were too outlandish to be true, B) He confronted those allegations head on, C) He sued those that made allegations against him. These are indicators of a false allegation as opposed to the remainder, which all have indicia of truthfulness.
Best regards,
Benny Forer
