Neulander Still Waiting

As the prosecution, defense and those watching the retrial of a rabbi charged with arranging his wife's murder wait for a verdict, the only clues as to what the jury is thinking are the notes passed to the judge asking for the readback of testimony.

So far, jurors have asked to hear a repeat of the words of Fred Neulander's daughter, the janitor at the M'kor Shalom synagogue, one of the admitted hit men and the rabbi himself.

"It's always like reading tea leaves," said Glenn Zeitz, a Haddonfield lawyer who has commented on the case for Court TV, which has televised the trial live.

But Zeitz said the testimony sought for a second review by the jury appears to show it is leaning toward the prosecution's case.

"I think their questions are more ominous for the defense than the prosecution," he said.

The jurors deliberated for a third day Tuesday. The rabbi is charged with setting up the Nov. 1, 1994, beating death of his wife at their Cherry Hill, N.J., home.

Prosecutors claim that Neulander agreed to pay two men $30,000 to carry out the killing so he could continue an affair with a Philadelphia radio personality. The defense contends that Len Jenoff and Paul Daniels, who have pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter, killed Carol Neulander during a botched robbery and the rabbi was not involved.

A Camden County jury that heard the case last year could not reach a verdict after seven days of deliberations and a mistrial was declared. The retrial was moved to Monmouth County in an effort to find jurors who did not see as much of the extensive media coverage of the case.

Neulander defense attorney Michael Riley said jurors this time appear to be going through the case as it was presented during the trial.

"I think if you look at the questions, they seem to be following chronologically through the testimony," Riley said. "They seem to be going incrementally."

Prosecutors refused to comment on the deliberations.

Last week, the jurors asked to hear a readback of the testimony of Rebecca Rockoff, who was on the phone with her mother, the victim, when Jenoff and Daniels arrived at the Neulander home on the night of the killing.

On Tuesday, the jury asked to hear a brief part of Neulander's testimony from the first trial concerning whether he checked to see if his wife was dead when he came home and found her in a pool of blood on the living room floor.

"I assumed she was dead," Neulander said.

The rabbi decided not to take the witness stand in the retrial, but his testimony from the first trial was read to the jury by prosecutors.

The jury also heard once again testimony given by Jenoff in which he claimed he was threatened by the rabbi after failing to carry out the killing a week before because he had "chickened out."

"His eyes were bulging," Jenoff said of Neulander's demeanor during a clandestine meeting in a parking garage. "He kind of grabbed me and said, `What the f--- happened? You promised to kill my wife."'

Neulander faces the death penalty if convicted.

Article continues below

---

advertisement

---

Author: NBC10/AP