Barry Freundel

Freundel ultimately pleaded guilty to 52 counts of voyeurism and was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison and fined $13,000. On August 28, 2018, the $100 million class action lawsuit which had been brought on behalf of the victims against Freundel and the organizations he was associated with was dropped in lieu of a settlement of $14.25 million, to be paid by the insurance of the parties named in the suit. He was expected to be released on August 21, 2020, but was released early on April 1, 2020 due to COVID-19.

On October 22, 2018, the D.C. Superior Court approved a $14.25 million class action settlement. According to the terms of the finalized settlement, women identified as having been videotaped by Freundel were entitled a base payment of $25,000. A $2,500 base payment was available to women who used the mikvah but were not confirmed as having been videotaped, and who suffered emotional distress after learning of Freundel's actions. Class members were also entitled to supplemental payment based on their individual experiences.

On April 18, 2018, an automated email was sent to those of Freundel's victims who had signed up for updates on the criminal case against him, notifying them that he would be released from prison on August 21. The next day, however, the D.C. Department of Corrections sent a correction, admitting that the previous email was a mistake. Freundel is expected to be released on August 21, 2020, after receiving a one-year sentence reduction due to good behavior.

In July 2017, a morality play by a local Washington-area playwright, entitled "Constructive Fictions," which was based on the Freundel scandal, ran at the Gallaudet University theater.

Lawsuits against Freundel and defendants began to gain steam in June 2016, when the Superior Court of the District of Columbia issued an order outlining the consolidation of claims against Freundel. Sanford Heisler, LLP was appointed interim class counsel by the court, and co-counseled with the D.C. law firm of Chaikin, Sherman, Cammarata & Siegel, P.C., which filed one of the first class action lawsuits against Freundel, Kesher Israel, the National Capital Mikvah, and the Rabbinical Council of America in December 2014. On August 16, 2016, the lawsuit was amended to add an additional defendant, the Beth Din of America.

Freundel was taken from the courtroom to the D.C. Jail, where he was put in isolation for 23 hours a day due to threats against him. He appealed his sentence, claiming that he should have been punished only for a single videotaping, but his appeal was rejected by Judge Alprin on July 31. A second attempt to have his sentence reconsidered, made to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, was filed on June 21, 2016 but was unanimously rejected on September 15, 2016 by the three-man panel.

On November 12, district prosecutors told a D.C. Superior Court judge they needed more time to investigate and determine if there were additional victims. The court was informed that a web site was being created in order to reach other victims. On January 16, 2015, the prosecution requested another one-month delay to complete their review of all the video evidence obtained from computers seized by police in the hope to identify additional victims.

In 2015, a congregant brought lawsuit against Freundel for allegedly transferring tens of thousands of dollars from her personal bank account into accounts of his own and in name of some of his children. She claimed she gave Freundel power of attorney when she traveled abroad and asked him to ensure should anything happen to her, she would have a Jewish burial. She also believed he used her apartment as a safehouse where he filmed at least one victim of domestic violence. While she was preparing an appeal in this litigation, she died and there was no one to continue the litigation on behalf of her estate. Right before her death, she was distraught that the rabbi's wife claimed in a deposition that she barely knew her, when she viewed the Freundels as her closest family.

On Friday, May 15, 2015, Freundel was sentenced by Judge Alprin in front of a packed courtroom to six-and-a-half years in prison and fined $13,000. "You repeatedly and secretly violated the trust your victims had in you, and you abused your power," Alprin told Freundel, in handing down the punishment. Beforehand, 18 of Freundel's victims testified about their emotions. "He lectured us about the evils of porn while turning us into his own porn stars," one victim told the court, choking back tears. Another said she fell into a deep depression and began using drugs. "I fell off the edge of this earth," she said. Seven others took the stand on his behalf, several of whom claimed that he was now a changed man. "It tears my guts out to think of the innocent people I've traumatized," Freundel, for his part, told the court, reading from a prepared text. "I am sorry."

In July 2015 an RCA review panel of six men and five women (including two converts) that was established in the wake of Freundel's arrest released a list of nine recommendations to guide the conversion process. These focused on "support for conversion candidates during and after their conversions, professionalism, transparency of expectations, sensitivity to candidates, educational experiences, the responsibilities and support for rabbis and rabbinic judges, and oversight, supervision, and grievance processing."

Freundel issued a public apology for his "heinous behavior" and "perverse mindset" on September 8, 2015, the eve of the Jewish High Holy Days, which are marked by repentance and forgiveness for sins.

On October 14, 2014 police took Freundel from his synagogue-owned residence in handcuffs and, pursuant to a search warrant, removed computers and other items from the premises. One day later, Freundel was arraigned and charged with six counts of voyeurism, a misdemeanor, for allegedly filming women while they were undressing before immersing themselves in the National Capital Mikvah, an independent facility that Freundel was instrumental in founding in 2005. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharon Marcus Kurn told the judge that Freundel "violated the laws up in the heavens and down," but he pleaded not guilty to these initial charges and was released on his own recognizance under condition that he stay away from and have no contact with the synagogue and the mikvah, which are located in adjacent buildings.

The police acted after the National Capital Mikvah's lay leadership handed them a suspicious clock radio the rabbi had placed in the shower room at the mikvah, a ritual bath that is used as part of the conversion ritual, by married Orthodox women following menstruation and childbirth and by some Orthodox men before the onset of the Sabbath and major Jewish holidays. "Upon receiving information regarding potentially inappropriate activity, the Board of Directors quickly alerted the appropriate officials," it noted in a statement published upon Freundel's arrest and suspension. "Throughout the investigation, we cooperated fully with law enforcement and will continue to do so." A witness told the police that Freundel was observed placing the clock radio in the mikvah shower room and, when he was discovered doing so, he claimed that he was repairing the ventilation. A police inspection of the clock radio found that it contained a video camera whose memory revealed surreptitious recordings of six different women changing — and moving images of Freundel himself setting up the camera. Detectives said that as many as 200 women could have been recorded without their knowledge. A forensic examination determined that several media storage devices found in Freundel's home contained copies of videos backed up from the camera's memory card.

Under Jakobovics's leadership, the synagogue turned its back on Freundel and directed all its attention to the victims of his actions by arranging a support group led by a licensed psychologist and consultations with therapists, as well as organizing a closed-to-the-media community meeting with Cathy L. Lanier, Washington's chief of police. Two days after Freundel's arrest and suspension, Jakabovics addressed a packed synagogue at Shemini Atzeret services, declaring: "These sacred spaces — our shul and our mikvah — have now been tarnished. Our inviolability has been violated. Kesher and the mikvah will be a safe place again."

On December 2, 2014 a student at Georgetown University Law Center, where Freundel taught a seminar on Jewish law, filed a lawsuit against Kesher Israel Congregation, Georgetown University and the National Capital Mikvah. The unnamed student had written a term paper on the mikvah, which received an "A" from Freundel, who had convinced her to immerse herself at the mikvah on two occasions, both of which she presumes he filmed. She sought class action status and claimed that the defendants turned a blind eye and failed in their responsibility to protect students from the rabbi, whose behavior she claimed was becoming ever more bizarre, and who was mistreating women subjected to his authority. On December 18, a student at Towson University identified only as "Stephanie" added her name to the lawsuit, claiming that Freundel encouraged her to take a "practice dunk" in the mikvah as part of her studies, even though she was not Jewish and had no interest in converting. She was joined by Emma Shulevitz, a woman who had been converting to Judaism under Freundel's auspices and who had likewise been encouraged by him to take a "practice dunk," an anomaly that he said would help prevent any misstep on the day of the conversion. They added the RCA as a defendant as well.

The plaintiffs claimed that the RCA and Freundel's synagogue were aware of his inappropriate conduct before the cameras were discovered in the ritual bath he supervised. They charged that the RCA and Kesher Israel should have removed Freundel from his positions of authority and that his alarming actions included inviting non-Jewish women to use the mikvah and inventing and encouraging the use of "practice dunks." In response, RCA issued the following statement: "The RCA has conducted itself appropriately and is taking important steps to improve its conversion protocols. We will defend ourselves vigorously in this matter." Kesher Israel responded with this statement: "Kesher Israel's leadership is deeply concerned about the harm caused by Rabbi Freundel's actions — of which we did not and could not have known — and for the personal welfare of all those individuals who may have been violated. The lawsuits that were recently filed are completely without merit. Our energies remain focused on working towards healing our community and building a vibrant future for Kesher Israel."

When he was unanimously fired by Kesher Israel's board on November 24, 2014, Freundel was given a grace period until January 1, 2015 to vacate the synagogue-owned rabbinic residence, but one month after the deadline passed he still had not done so. As a result, Kesher Israel referred the matter to the Beth Din of America, asking that it order Freundel to move out, return all synagogue property, compensate the congregation for his occupancy of the house beyond the January 1 deadline, and cover the costs of the arbitration. He finally vacated the house on March 3, leaving it in a state of disrepair that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to renovate. This litigation, however, did not involve Freundel's wife, Sharon, who moved out less than three weeks after his arrest. He acceded to her request for a get (a Jewish divorce document) shortly afterwards.

Freundel was named by The Jewish Daily Forward to its "list of the 50 American Jews who have had the most impact on our national story" in 2014. In explaining his inclusion, the newspaper wrote that "It's hard to imagine a more disturbing violation of a sacred Jewish space than the one of which Orthodox rabbi Barry Freundel is accused." The Israeli newspaper Haaretz ranked the "Peeping Rabbi" as number 1 on its list of "Ten scandals that rocked the Jewish world in 2014," and noted that it did so "because the idea that any rabbi might (allegedly) use hidden cameras to spy on women in their most sacred place like the ritual bath and exploit the vulnerability of conversion candidates to Judaism is unfathomable."

The day Freundel was arrested, the president of the RCA, Rabbi Leonard Matanky, revealed that the Council investigated allegations earlier in the year that related to "ethical issues that came up regarding an issue with a woman," but no action was taken. That may have been a reference to overnight train rides Freundel booked in May 2013 to and from Chicago, where he supposedly was to "conduct research." It later transpired that he had traveled on both legs of the round-trip journey with a woman who was not his wife, with whom he shared a private sleeping berth.

On October 20, the RCA issued a press release stating that it discovered in 2012 that Freundel had coerced conversion candidates into performing clerical work at his home and contributing money to his rabbinic court. The RCA also was able to confirm that he shared a checking account with a conversion candidate. At the time the RCA did not view these activities as rising to the level that would require Freundel's suspension, but did suspend him once he was arrested and, together with its affiliated Beth Din of America, launched its own investigation led by Allen Fagin, the chief professional at the Orthodox Union, and Eric Goldstein, CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York.

Freundel served as consultant to the Ethics Review Board of the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health and consultant to the United States Presidential Commission on Cloning (May 1997).

In the past, he had served as pre-rabbinics advisor and assistant director of synagogue services at Yeshiva University (August 1986 - June 1989), as a member of Yeshiva University's Rabbinic Alumni Association Executive Committee, and as a vice-president of the RCA, whose conversion committee he headed.

Bernard "Barry" Freundel (born December 16, 1951) is the former rabbi of Kesher Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C. from 1989 until 2014. Freundel was regarded as "a brilliant scholar," a "profound" orator and an authority in several areas of halakha (Jewish law), including eruvim, which he assisted in constructing in a number of cities, including Washington.