Mistrial in Rabbi Neulander Case

CAMDEN, N.J.: A judge declared a mistrial Tuesday in the trial of a rabbi accused of arranging his wife's murder after the jury said they had reached a standstill on all three counts.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for more than 40 hours over seven days before sending Superior Court Judge Linda G. Baxter a note Tuesday afternoon saying they were at a hopeless standstill. The rabbi could have faced the death penalty if convicted on the most serious charges.

Prosecutors argued during 11 days of testimony that Rabbi Fred J. Neulander, 60, wanted his 52-year-old wife dead so he could carry on an affair with a former Philadelphia radio host. Carol Neulander was found bludgeoned to death in the couple's suburban Philadelphia home on Nov. 1, 1994.

Defense attorneys had claimed Neulander was an adulterer, but that didn't mean he was guilty of murder.

Neulander, a senior rabbi at Congregation M'kor Shalom until a few months after his wife's death, took the stand at the trial, a rarity in a capital murder case. He said he and his wife had an "open marriage" in which they agreed to see other people but denied plotting the murder. "I was selfish and arrogant. I went beyond the bounds of the marriage," Neulander testified. "I betrayed Carol. I betrayed my family. I betrayed my synagogue, I betrayed my religion."

The case brought national media attention to Cherry Hill, a sprawling suburb six miles east of Philadelphia where it's been estimated that as many as one-third of the 70,000 residents are Jewish.

The case turned on the word of Neulander versus that of Len Jenoff, a private investigator and recovering alcoholic who met with the rabbi as he struggled with his "Jewish issues." He said the rabbi offered him $30,000 and the promise of a position in the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, to kill Mrs. Neulander.

Jenoff said Neulander paid him half the money up front, but shorted him in the end after funneling him some funds through his lawyers, whom the rabbi had him hire to "investigate" the murder.

Jenoff, 56, and his former roommate, Paul Michael Daniels, 27, whom Jenoff met at a halfway house for recovering addicts, have pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter in the killing.

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Author: 6 ABC - Action News