Christopher Peak File Photo
Rabbi Greer.
Quoting the Talmud, a state judge sentenced Rabbi Daniel Greer, once one of New Haven’s most prominent religious figures, to 20 years in state prison, suspended after 12 years, for repeatedly raping a teenage student at his Norton Street boarding school.
Judge Jon Alander handed down that sentence Monday morning in State Superior Court at 235 Church St., in what he said he hopes will be a powerful message to others who’ve feared reporting child predators, especially in cloistered Orthodox Jewish communities.
Greer, 79, covered his eyes with a hand on his forehead as he listened to testimony. He declined to make a statement to the court, because his lawyers said they plan to appeal the verdict.
Greer stood as Judge Alander read off the sentence for each of the four felony counts of risk of injury to a minor. As soon as Alander said it would involve prison time, a court marshal immediately grabbed Greer’s right hand, pulled it behind his back and put it in cuffs. Greer’s face reddened, and he began shaking.
Alander ordered that Greer go straight to jail rather than remain free on bond. He said that’s because he considers Greer a substantial flight risk, as he faces the “cold realization” that he will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. Alander added that, last time he’d raised the bond to $750,000, his wife, Sarah Greer, had somehow come up with tens of thousands of dollars in cash within just a few hours.
Greer will have to serve only 12 years in prison. After that, the rest of the full 20-year sentence will be hanging over his head as a consequence for violating his probation, which he will be on for up to 20 more years.
Greer will also have to register as a sex offender for 10 years, with a description that says he repeatedly had oral and anal sex with a teenager. He will have to pay a $151 fine, and he will have to give a DNA sample.
“Why does society view these crimes as particularly deplorable? Why have they garnered such significant media and public attention? Because they involve a colossal violation of trust,” Alander said.
“When, as parents, we send our children to school and take them to houses of worship, we entrust the leaders of those with the care of our children. We share an unspoken promise in understanding that our children will grow and prosper under their tutelage. When a teacher or religious leader breaks that promise, they betray that trust. It is both unexpected and deeply disturbing.”
“It is important that a statement be made, to be heard by others in positions of authority who might be tempted; to be heard by the victims of sexual abuse who may find some solace in it,” Alander continued. “The Talmud [a primary source of Jewish rabbinic law] teaches that there is hope for a man who is capable of being ashamed. It is my hope that someday you will truly feel ashamed for your actions and thereby embark on the road to redemption.”
Two months ago, a jury found Greer guilty on four felony counts of child endangerment, which could’ve each carried a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison, though on Monday, Alander knocked them down to a lower felony class with a 10-year maximum. Other sexual-assault charges were dismissed on a technicality.
(In 2017, a civil jury had also concluded Greer and the Yeshiva of New Haven owed Mirlis $21 million in damages, which remains almost entirely unpaid.)
“Narrow” Or Full “Portrait?
During the criminal trial, Eliyahu Mirlis said that Greer repeatedly raped him from 2002 to 2005, when he was a student at the Yeshiva of New Haven. Another former student, who went by his initials, said Greer groped and kissed him in 2008.
David Grudberg, Greer’s defense attorney, asked Alander at Monday’s sentencing to consider all of the work the rabbi had done in New Haven. He submitted three packets of letters and articles that explained why Greer had once been known informally as the “mayor” of the Edgewood neighborhood.
Grudberg said the trial testimony had given a “very narrow portrait” of the rabbi, making him out to be “some sort of tyrant.” He said that overlooked how deeply Greer cares about education, sending many alumni off to Ivy League colleges, and about the neighborhood around his yeshiva, renovating derelict houses and chasing out crime.
“Thirty years later, we have a vibrant, multicultural, affordable neighborhood,” Grudberg said.
Maxine Wilensky, the senior assistant state’s attorney who prosecuted the case, said those who’d written pages in Greer’s defense did not truly know the rabbi as victim Eliyahu Mirlis had.
“People believe him to be an honest and decent man, but they truly do not know him,” she said. Greer “could lend incredible support to hose around him, but he could also be most severe and unkind to those children who were left in his charge.”
“To believe he is this type of man who deserves support ignores Eli Mirlis, who consistently described how the defendant took him, as a young boy with no sexual knowledge, groomed him and used his position of authority to use Mr. Mirlis for his own sexual gratification,” she went on. “It left a 15-year-old naive boy away from home, having no protection, confused and absolutely powerless.”
“Do not let this man hide behind his title,” Wilensky concluded.
Mirlis, in a written letter to the court, said that he was forever changed by the sexual abuse.
“I will never recover,” he recover. “I would gladly return whatever money I collect in order to turn the clock back and relive my childhood.”
Mirlis added that a long sentence would still help others. He said he hoped it would encourage other victims to report their abusers, bring attention to the issue within Orthodox Jewish communities (just like the Catholic Church’s own reckoning) and deter child molesters.
As Alander read the sentence Monday, Mirlis put his head down on the courtroom bench. His mother, sitting beside him, rubbed a hand along his back.
After Greer was taken to a holding cell, Sarah Greer began phoning up the rabbi’s defenders in the courtroom hallway. On one call, she said that bad things happen to good people. On another, she asked the school’s secretary if she could find the phone number for Alan Dershowitz, the renowned defense attorney, in the rolodexes on Greer’s desk.
“You can’t prove he did it,” Sarah Greer sighed. “It’s like the thing that happened to Brett Kavanaugh. It’s so far-fetched. People like to pull down someone who they see as successful.”
Crusader Vs. Gay Rights
During the trial, expert witnesses, on the stand, detailed the way molesters manipulate their victims, finding vulnerable kids and testing how far they can go, while childhood sexual assault victims often delay telling anyone because of that fraught relationship with their abuser.
The experts said it’s even more difficult for Orthodox Jews, who are taught to trust their rabbi, to avoid even discussion of sexuality, and to not speak evil against anyone.
Beginning in the 1980s, Rabbi Greer oversaw the revival of the neighborhood around his yeshiva at the corner of Norton and Elm streets, renovating neglected historic homes. He advocated for keeping nuisance businesses out of the Whalley Avenue commercial corridor, exposed johns who patronized street prostitutes in the neighborhood, and then in 2007 for launching an armed neighborhood “defense” patrol and then calling in the Guardian Angels for assistance to combat crime.
Over the years, Rabbi Greer also received national attention for his political stands. In the 1970s, he led a successful campaign to force the United States to pressure the Soviet Union into allowing Jewish “refuseniks” to emigrate here and start new, freer lives. Greer has also crusaded against gay rights in Connecticut, and filed suit against Yale University over a requirement that students live in coed dorms.
Previous coverage of this case:
• Suit: Rabbi Molested, Raped Students
• Greer’s Housing Corporations Added To Sex Abuse Lawsuit
• 2nd Ex-Student Accuses Rabbi Of Sex Assault
• 2nd Rabbi Accuser Details Alleged Abuse
• Rabbi Sexual Abuse Jury Picked
• On Stand, Greer Invokes 5th On Sex Abuse
• Rabbi Seeks To Bar Blogger from Court
• Trial Mines How Victims Process Trauma
• Wife, Secretary Come To Rabbi Greer’s Defense
• Jury Awards $20M In Rabbi Sex Case
• State Investigates Greer Yeshiva’s Licensing
• Rabbi Greer Seeks New Trial
• Affidavit: Scar Gave Rabbi Greer Away
• Rabbi Greer Pleads Not Guilty
• $21M Verdict Upheld; Where’s The $?
• Sex Abuse Victim’s Video Tests Law
• Decline at Greer’s Edgewood “Village”?
• Rabbi’s Wife Sued For Stashing Cash
• Why Greer Remains Free, & Victim Unpaid
• Showdown Begins Over Greer Properties
• Judge: Good Chance Greer’s Wife Hid $240K
• Sex Abuse Too Much For Many Jurors
• Potential Greer Juror Grilled On “Truth”
• Greer Jury Finalized
• Greer’s Accuser Recounts Sexual Abuse
• Attorney Grills Greer Accuser
• Religion’s Role Raised In Greer Trial
• Another Greer Accuser Testifies
• Trial Question: Can Sex Crimes Victims Love Their Abusers?
• State Screws Up: 4 Greer Counts Dismissed
• Jury Finds Rabbi Greer Guilty
• “Noodles” Sideshow Stalls Sentencing