Neulander Jury to Deliberate

Closing arguments are now finished and the judge will charge the jury Friday morning in the Rabbi Fred Neulander murder-for-hire case.

The jury will get the case around 10 a.m. after they are charged at 8:30 a.m. with their duties.

In their final words to the jury considering whether a rabbi is guilty of murder, defense and prosecution lawyers each attacked the leading figure on the other side.

Michael A. Riley, the lawyer for Rabbi Fred J. Neulander, told the jury of nine men and seven women that the state's contention that his client arranged his wife's murder relied on emotion and the testimony of a witness of dubious credibility.

"The state's case is designed ... to make you say, `I don't like him. There's nothing there. He's a failure. He's a shallow human being,' and then make the leap to murder without any evidence," Riley said.

The state's key witness, Leonard Jenoff, admitted killing Carol Neulander on Nov. 1, 1994, in the Neulanders' Cherry Hill home and said the rabbi paid him and another man to do it.

But Jenoff's past is fraught with lies. He claimed to have had a career with the CIA and a role in the Iran-Contra Affair, neither of which is true.

Camden County Assistant Prosecutor James A. Lynch did not defend Jenoff, other than to say testimony from others corroborated that he was paid to kill Mrs. Neulander.

Lynch spent most of his more than two-hour closing argument pointing out contradictions in previous statements by Neulander, who did not testify. He listed them on two large posterboards displayed for the jury to read.

Lynch referred derisively to a statement by Neulander, who was involved in an extramarital affair with a Philadelphia radio host, that he had called his wife hours before she was killed just to say, "I love you."

"Mr. Jenoff's in a fantasy world?" Lynch asked. "What about Mr. Neulander?

"He's in a fantasy world as Stevie Wonder," Lynch said, alluding to the singer of the one-time pop hit "I Just Called to Say I Love You."

The closings wrapped up a 31/2-week trial that featured a procession of colorful characters, including an aging convicted mobster and the rabbi's former mistress, who testified for the prosecution.

The jury was expected to be charged Friday. Four of the jurors were to become alternates, with the rest to begin deliberations.

If Neulander, 61, is found guilty of capital murder, the same jury would decide whether he should be sentenced to death.

Neulander first went on trial a year ago in Camden, but a mistrial was declared when jurors could not agree on a verdict.

Neulander's second trial was ordered moved to Monmouth County by Superior Court Judge Linda Baxter in an effort to find a jury less exposed to the widespread publicity the case generated in the Philadelphia media market.

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