N.J. yeshiva teacher seeks to withdraw sex assault plea

by: Wayne Parry

usatoday

A former New Jersey yeshiva teacher who admitted sexually assaulting a young boy wants to withdraw his guilty plea, saying he was pressured by members of his Orthodox Jewish community to take responsibility for something he didn’t do.

Yosef Kolko said in court papers that members of the Lakewood community carried out an unrelenting campaign to get him to plead guilty and to spare the community negative publicity. He claims they showed him YouTube videos “of how inmates kill people in jail for being molesters in order to pressure me into taking a plea and avoiding trial.”

“If not for the extreme pressure by members of my community, I would not have pled guilty as charged,” he said. “I reject plea bargains offered by the state because I am innocent of the crimes alleged.”

Prosecutors said the boy’s family was ostracized by the community for pursuing the case in state court instead of letting religious leaders deal with it. The boy’s father, a prominent rabbi, lost his job and the family moved to Michigan.

Kolko claims that after three days of testimony in the case in May, five members of the Jewish community came to his house at 2 a.m., pressuring him for hours to plead guilty.

“I arrived at court exhausted from the events earlier that morning and told my brother, Shabsi Kolko, that I was pleading guilty against my will,” he said in court papers.

Kolko pleaded guilty while he was on trial on several counts including aggravated sexual assault. The accusations involved a 12-year-old boy Kolko met at a camp. The alleged abuse took place between August 2008 and February 2009.

The 39-year-old Kolko is likely to be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison if he is not allowed to withdraw his plea.

When he pleaded guilty, Kolko admitted performing oral sex on the boy and attempting to have anal intercourse with him.

When the judge asked if anyone had made any promises to him to force or persuade him to plead guilty, Kolko replied, “Not part of the court system, no.” The judge later asked if anyone had “forced, threatened or coerced” him into pleading guilty, and Kolko replied, “No.”

The victim’s father had initially wanted the case handled within the Orthodox community, asking a senior rabbi to help ensure that Kolko stay away from children and go to therapy. In mid-2009, the father decided to take the case to authorities.

On the witness stand, the father said he went to prosecutors because he felt the case was not being handled appropriately. Kolko was still teaching and planning to work at the summer camp where he met the boy.

This article was written by Wayne Parry and originally published onusatoday