Freundel secretly took video recordings of women preparing for a bath.
AB Wire
WASHINGTON, DC: Rabbi Bernard “Barry” Freundel, 63, who had worked for a Jewish congregation in Washington, D.C., was sentenced on Friday to a prison term of six years and six months on 52 counts of voyeurism stemming from a series of incidents between 2009 and 2014 in which he secretly took video recordings of women preparing for a Jewish ritual bath.
Freundel pleaded guilty in February 2015 to the misdemeanor charges before the Judge Geoffrey M. Alprin in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The sentencing came at the end of a three-hour hearing in which more than a dozen women told the court of the emotional impact they continue to endure because of Freundel’s abuse of his position of trust. Judge Alprin sentenced Freundel to 45 days in prison for each of the 52 victims, calling his actions “a classic abuse of power and violation of trust.”
Freundel, who had been free on personal recognizance, was immediately taken into custody to begin serving his sentence, according to the Justice Department.
According to court testimony, between early 2009 and October 2014, Freundel was the sole rabbi of Kesher Israel congregation in Northwest Washington, D.C. Kesher Israel is adjacent to the National Capital Mikvah, a Jewish ritual bath. A mikvah is used primarily by orthodox Jewish women for monthly spiritual purification and by other individuals as the final step in the orthodox Jewish conversion process.
The National Capital Mikvah has two changing/showering rooms connected to the room with the ritual bath. On numerous occasions between early 2009 and October 2014, the defendant installed and maintained electronic recording devices in the larger of the two changing/showering rooms. Freundel did so for the sole purpose of secretly and surreptitiously recording women who were using the bathroom and shower; these women were totally and partially undressed before and/or after showering. The women recorded did not know they were being recorded and did not consent to being recorded.
On October 12, 2014, Freundel entered the larger changing/showering room with a clock radio that contained a hidden recording device. He placed the clock radio on the countertop of the sink and positioned the recording element so that it faced the shower area. He then left the changing area. Shortly thereafter, the clock radio was taken by an individual associated with the Mikvah, who immediately turned it over to the MPD, leading to an investigation.
Freundel was arrested on October 14, 2014. Law enforcement executed search warrants to examine the contents of the clock radio and to seek evidence at Freundel’s home and office at Towson University. Computer forensic examinations of all of the electronic devices and digital media storage devices seized from the defendant’s home and office revealed recordings made by the defendant of at least 52 women who were totally or partially undressed in the large showering/changing room of the Mikvah on a total of 25 different dates between March 4, 2012 and September 19, 2014.
These are the women who are the subjects of the charges to which Freundel pleaded guilty in February 2015. The charge of voyeurism has a three-year statute of limitations.
In addition to the 52 recordings that were the subject of the plea, computer forensic examinations revealed that Freundel secretly and surreptitiously recorded approximately 100 additional women totally or partially undressed before and/or after showering in the large bathroom at the National Capital Mikvah between 2009 and September 2014. These women did not know that they were being recorded and did not consent to being recorded.