Christopher Peak Photo
Rabbi Daniel Greer with bail bondsman after July 2017 arrest.
A panel of six has been selected to weigh the accusations that Rabbi Daniel Greer sexually abused a teenage student at his boarding school almost 15 years ago.
It took four full days of interviews, featuring nearly 80 county residents, to complete the exhausting process known as “voir dire.”
By Thursday afternoon, attorneys struggled to keep details straight and phrase direct questions, as they settled on the final juror.
The trial, which is scheduled to begin on Sept. 17, will be decided by six jurors, with three alternates ready to sub in that still need to be picked.
There’s a raspy-voiced Meriden retiree who spent 35 years answering phones at the Shipman & Goodwin law firm. She said she is “not really intimidated by lawyers or judges” and has a “good gut” for reading people. “They don’t keep me here because I’m pretty,” she said of her work.
Almost a decade ago, she served on the jury in a rape case, in which she said seeing the victim’s clothes swayed her vote.
There’s a North Branford postal service manager who’s in charge of operations in distribution centers near Hartford. He’s raising two daughters next door to the house where he grew up. Even though he doesn’t know much about it, he coaches lacrosse to spend time with his youngest.
There’s a Hamden insurance agency owner who took over the firm from his dad and asked for permission to take business calls during the breaks between testimony.
More than 30 years ago, his aunt was murdered in Branford; the suspect was deported before facing trial. “It was very disappointing,” he said. “I thought it would be more definitive, that I would know what happened, and I still don’t.”
There’s also an East Haven “hockey mom” who works at a land-surveying company, an Edgewood neighborhood resident who works as a scheduler for Yale New Haven Hospital and has dealt with authorities before over a niece’s sexual assault, and a Wallingford nail salon owner who watches Law & Order to fall asleep at night.
The selection process does continue for the alternates.
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”