Connecticut Rabbi Pleads Not Guilty To Sex Assault On Student
(JTA) — A Connecticut judge entered pleas of not guilty on behalf of a prominent Connecticut rabbi charged in the alleged sexual assault of a minor.
Rabbi Daniel Greer, 77, the founding rabbi of the Yeshiva of New Haven, appeared Tuesday in Superior Court in that city. He is charged with second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor, and remains free on $100,000 bail.
Eliyahu Mirlis, 29, of New Jersey, claims the rabbi raped and sexually molested him hundreds of times when he was a minor and a student at the religious boarding school from 2001 to 2005. Mirlis has urged media outlets that normally would not identify an abuse victim to use his name.
In May, a federal jury ordered Greer and the Yeshiva of New Haven to pay Mirlis $15 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.
In the civil lawsuit, which was filed last year, Mirlis claimed the abuse occurred for three years when he was a student at the yeshiva, which Greer also served as principal.
Greer has denied the allegations and his attorney said he would appeal the civil judgment.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
