page_title: Barry Freundel
section_title: Sentencing
hierarchical_section_title: Barry Freundel / Voyeurism charges and conviction / Sentencing
caption_attribution_description: English: Ronald Machen, United States Attorney
context_page_description: Bernard "Barry" Freundel is the former rabbi of Kesher Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C. from 1989 until 2014. Freundel was regarded as "a brilliant scholar," a "profound" orator and an authority in several areas of halakha, including eruvim, which he assisted in constructing in a number of cities, including Washington.
  Freundel's career came to a sudden end in October 2014 when he was arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia and charged with committing voyeurism of several women in a mikveh. Kesher Israel immediately suspended him without pay and later notified the congregants that he had been fired. Similarly, he was also suspended from membership in the Vaad and the Rabbinical Council of America, the main professional association for Modern Orthodox rabbis in the United States. He also was suspended from his multiple academic positions. He was assistant professor of rabbinics at Baltimore Hebrew University, where he was the rabbinic studies graduate program adviser, associate professor at Towson University and adjunct lecturer at the Georgetown University Law Center.
context_section_description: Ronald Machen, then the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, indicated that he would push for a harsh sentence. "Bernard Freundel exploited his position of power to victimize dozens of women who entered a sacred, intimate space of religious ritual," he said. "We will be seeking a prison sentence that reflects the gravity of this disturbing assault on the privacy and dignity of so many victims."
  The statutory maximum punishment is a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500 on each of the first 30 counts and $1,000 on the remainder.
  A week before the sentencing, prosecutors submitted a 25-page memorandum to Judge Geoffrey M. Alprin requesting a prison term of 17 years, or four months on each of the 52 counts. In his 12-page response, Freundel's defense attorney asked that his client be spared prison time and sentenced instead to community service. "He has already been punished in that he has lost his employment as a rabbi and is never likely to be so employed again," Freundel's lawyer wrote. "He has been publicly humiliated and his prior reputation as a Judaic scholar, teacher and counselor have been destroyed."
  On Friday, May 15, 2015, Freundel was sentenced by Judge Alprin in front of a packed courtroom to six-and-a-half years in prison and fined $13,000. "You repeatedly and secretly violated the trust your victims had in you, and you abused your power," Alprin told Freundel, in handing down the punishment. Beforehand, 18 of Freundel's victims testified about their emotions. "He lectured us about the evils of porn while turning us into his own porn stars," one victim told the court, choking back tears. Another said she fell into a deep depression and began using drugs. "I fell off the edge of this earth," she said. Seven others took the stand on his behalf, several  of whom claimed that he was now a changed man. "It tears my guts out to think of the innocent people I've traumatized," Freundel, for his part, told the court, reading from a prepared text. "I am sorry."
  "Today the court heard the heart-wrenching accounts of the victims of Barry Freundel's exploitation," noted Acting U.S. Attorney Vincent H. Cohen, Jr. of the District of Columbia, in announcing the court's decision. "Their stories make clear the lasting scars that will be left by this outrageous abuse of power. This prosecution was an effort to restore the dignity that Barry Freundel tried to steal from these women. We hope that the scores of victims of his crimes will find some solace in the justice meted out by the court today."
  "It is my hope that the many victims in this case draw a small measure of relief from the sentencing action today," added Metropolitan Police Chief Lanier. "His actions wounded an entire religious community and showed a flagrant disregard for his position of trust within that community. I am confident that today's action by the courts will serve to continue the healing process for the many unwitting victims of this predator."
  Prosecutors later revealed that among the videos Freundel stored at his residence were several he made of himself in "sexual situations" with other women, many of whom may have been unaware that the liaisons were  being recorded.
  Freundel was taken from the courtroom to the D.C. Jail, where he was put in isolation for 23 hours a day due to threats against him. He appealed his sentence, claiming that he should have been punished only for a single videotaping, but his appeal was rejected by Judge Alprin on July 31. A second attempt to have his sentence reconsidered, made to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, was filed on June 21, 2016 but was unanimously rejected on September 15, 2016 by the three-man panel.
caption: Ronald Machen, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia at the time of Freundel's arrest
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