Conviction Jewish institutions and contexts Hasidic and Haredi communities Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, USA · 2013

Meir Dascalowitz: guilty plea for molesting a disabled teenage boy in a Satmar mikveh

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

mikveh attendant/supervisor in the Satmar community

Organization

No organization assigned

Spiritual nexus

Dascalowitz had supervisory access to the boy inside the mikveh, a space governed by strict religious rules of purity and modesty where a minor is expected to submit to the adult attendant's direction; the family that reported the abuse was subsequently shunned and intimidated within the Satmar community for pursuing the case.

Sacred sex, purity, or sexual-energy claim
Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2013-05-01 · guilty plea and sentence

Kings County Supreme Court, New York. Meir Dascalowitz, 27, pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual abuse for molesting a mentally disabled Hasidic teenage boy inside a mikveh (ritual bath) and was sentenced to 5 years in prison. He was later released, re-arrested for a parole violation, and re-released.

Documented coercion mechanisms

access to a mentally disabled minor inside the ritual bath he supervised, and the community's expectation of deference to religious functionaries

Primary record

Sources

reliable contemporaneous court reporting plea report 'Williamsburg Man Pleads Guilty To Molesting Hasidic Teen In Mikva; To Get 5 Yrs', VINnews (2013).: Reports the guilty plea to second-degree sexual abuse and the agreed five-year sentence for molesting a disabled teenager in the mikveh.
reference summary background 'Sexual abuse cases in Brooklyn's Haredi community', Wikipedia.: Summarizes the case within the broader pattern of Haredi community sexual-abuse cases and community retaliation against reporting families.

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