Rabbi Barry Freundel was sentenced to six and a half years in prison today (May 15, 2015) for secretly videotaping more than 100 nude women for several years in the Washington, D.C. synagogue he headed, the JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) website reports.
"You repeatedly and secretly violated the trust your victims had in you, and you abused your power," Senior Judge Geoffrey Alprin of D.C. Superior Court said at the sentencing. Alprin also fined Freundel more than $2,000.
Prosecutors had sought 17 years in prison after Freundel -- the former spiritual leader of a prominent Washington Orthodox synagogue -- pleaded guilty in February to 52 counts of misdemeanor voyeurism. Freundel's lawyers sought community service. Freundel had also recorded over 100 more naked women since April 2009, but was not charged with, because the statute of limitations had expired.
The rabbi -- now 64 -- was arrested last October and charged with six counts of voyeurism after investigators found hidden cameras in the National Capital Mikvah's shower room and in his home. He was fired from Kesher Israel -- the congregation he had led for 25 years and which abuts the ritual bath, or mikvah -- soon after his arrest.
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