Jail, Chaskel Werzberger | featured news

Innocent 'rabbi killer' freed in NY

A New York judge frees a man unjustly convicted of murdering a rabbi 23 years ago, offering what she acknowledged was a "grossly inadequate" apology.

 

New York man to be freed after serving 22 years for a murder he didn't commit; police had manipulated evidence.

In the wintry darkness 23 years ago on a back street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a jewelry thief fleeing a botched robbery panicked and shot a Hasidic rabbi in the head. Four days later, the rabbi, Chaskel Werzberger, an Auschwitz survivor, died of his wounds. Even in the New York City of 1990, as homicides crested at 2,245, the murder stirred grief and outrage. The “Slain Rabbi” was front-page tabloid news. Mayor David N. Dinkins traveled to Williamsburg’s Satmar enclave to sit in mourning and to offer a $10,000 reward.

 

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