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Edited by: TJVNews.com
The lawyer for a man who was involved in what was originally reported as an attempted abduction of a 9 year old Orthodox Jewish boy in Brooklyn is categorizing those reports as being completely untrue, according to an exclusive report on the Vois Es Nais web site on Thursday.
According to a report on Wednesday on the 1010 WINS radio web site, a man wearing traditional Jewish garb entered the Hesed Le Avraham Synagogue at 1848 East 7th Street near Kings Highway in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn at 9:38 a.m. and grabbed the boy by the shoulders, allegedly in an attempt to kidnap him. The boy was attending a bris at the synagogue where the suspect was praying.
The suspect then picked the child up and attempted to walk out of the synagogue with him.
According to police, his mother intervened and was able to grab her son back, 1010 WINS reported. She asked her son if he knew the man and the child said, “no.” As previously reported on VIN News, the NYPD and Flatbush Shomrim were called after the mother suspected that her son was being abducted by the man.
The suspect then fled the synagogue on foot and was later identified as 42-year-old Yossi Mayer. He was found by Flatbush Shomrim allegedly hiding in a nearby yeshiva. He was then arrested by the NYPD.
The suspect reportedly has no affiliation at all with the Yeshiva, and was simply using it to hide, the Yeshiva World News web site reported.
VIN reported that according to the report in the New York Post (https://bit.ly/3j4owCS) which first broke the story, police said that the man approached the child and asked him to go outside with him, picking him up by the shoulders when he refused and “attempting to carry him out through the front door.”
When contacted by VIN News about the incident, police said that the man “grabbed the nine year old boy by the shoulder in a house of worship and attempted to force him out of the location.”
VIN reported that neither of those descriptions corroborate with surveillance video of the incident which has been circulating on social media. The video shows Mayer stopping the boy as he passes by in the synagogue lobby, placing his hands on the boy’s shoulder and speaking with him for several seconds before the two walk off together, according to the VIN exclusive report.
Five seconds later, the footage shows a woman pulling the boy aside, while the man continues out the synagogue’s front door, the report continues.
Reports on social media have suggested that the man wanted the boy to proceed with him through several groups of women congregating in the lobby to avoid walking between two women, a stringency observed by many Orthodox Jewish men, the VIN exclusive indicated.
Mayer was reportedly charged yesterday with kidnapping, endangering the welfare of a child and harassment, VIN reported. He was charged with two lesser misdemeanors in front of the Brooklyn District Attorney. It was claimed that he behaved in a manner that was injurious to a child under 17 and he was charged with unlawful imprisonment in the second degree, VIN reported. He was released on his own recognizance.
He is due back in court on March 16th.
The arrested man’s lawyer, Avi Moskowitz, called the New York Post story, which said that the mother had to rip her child out of the man’s arms, “a complete fiction, “ according to the VIN report.
Moskowitz said that having seen the surveillance video, the district attorney’s office recognized that the initial information it had received was incorrect, VIN reported and moved to reduce the severity of the charges.
Speaking to VIN News, attorney Moskowirz said, “I think that ultimately they will learn more and that this will be resolved favorably.” He added that, “The jumping to conclusions here was absurd and very distressing.”
