Brooklyn safety patrol leader accused of repeated sexual abuse of young girl
Brooklyn NY march 6 2021 An influential founder of a Brooklyn safety patrol sexually abused a teenage girl for several months in his home, at a summer house in upstate New York and at a hotel in Chicago, federal prosecutors said on Thursday.
The allegations against Jacob Daskal, 62, were outlined in a federal indictment that added new details to statutory rape charges that were filed against him in state court nearly three years ago and that officials said involved the same 15-year-old victim.
In announcing the federal charges, prosecutors said Mr. Daskal’s prominent position with the safety patrol and his insistence that the teenager keep the abuse secret had made her feel intimidated.
“The victim was afraid of the defendant because of his position of power in the community,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
Mr. Daskal, a real-estate property manager, pleaded not guilty to the new charges at an arraignment in federal court in Brooklyn on Thursday.
Over prosecutors’ objections, he was released on a $4.5 million bail package secured by properties owned by several family members and ordered confined to his home with exceptions for activities related to work, worship and visiting relatives.
Mr. Daskal’s lawyer, Henry E. Mazurek, said in a statement that his client had not engaged in “any inappropriate sexual relationship with the alleged victim.”
“Mr. Daskal has been fighting these same charges in state court over the last three years and will continue to do so now,” Mr. Mazurek said.
Mr. Daskal lives in Brooklyn’s Borough Park neighborhood and helped found the Brooklyn South Safety Patrol, which operates there and is also known as the shomrim, the Hebrew word for “guards.” The group was started in the 1970s in response to skyrocketing crime rates and a wave of anti-Semitic incidents, community leaders said.
The shomrim, a nonprofit organization, is staffed by unarmed ultra-Orthodox Jewish volunteers and functions as a kind of auxiliary police force in the area, where it is viewed as a source of local pride. Sister patrols exist in other Brooklyn neighborhoods with large ultra-Orthodox populations, including Crown Heights and Williamsburg.
Today, the patrol keeps a close eye on anti-Semitic attacks, which have become a pressing concern again in recent years, particularly those targeting ultra-Orthodox Jews. It has also evolved to handle tasks like crowd control, searching for missing persons and providing security at weddings, religious services and other events.
The Borough Park patrol enjoys a close relationship with law enforcement authorities and elected officials, who have helped steer public money its way to help pay for equipment. In 2012, the City Council distributed money to the group for a $300,000 mobile command center that included a 12-person conference room and advanced communications technology.
Some shomrim members have been accused of showing more interest in breaking the law than upholding it. In 2016, two men linked to the Williamsburg patrol pleaded guilty to assaulting a Black man in the neighborhood. A Borough Park shomrim member was arrested the same year on federal charges of trying to bribe police officers in exchange for handgun permits. He later pleaded guilty.
In a 2016 interview, Mr. Daskal dismissed the episodes as the work of a few “bad apples.”
“It’s a very sad reality in our community that you have many people dedicated to helping and a small minority of critics on the sidelines questioning our motives,” he said. “It’s always the good ones who get criticized.”
Community leaders said on Thursday that they believed the shomrim had removed Mr. Daskal from his leadership position after the initial allegations, but his current role was not immediately clear. A prosecutor said in court that she did not believe Mr. Daskal was still involved with the patrol.
Two Hasidic men who live on Mr. Daskal’s block said on Thursday that they he believed he was innocent.
Gill Hoffman, 61, said that he had met Mr. Daskal when both men were in their 20s. Mr. Hoffman said that when his car stalled, Mr. Daskal showed up with jumper cables.
“I know him as a nice guy, a charming guy, a helpful guy,” Mr. Hoffman said.
Mr. Hoffman said he believed that Mr. Daskal’s troubles began when he tried to help a local family only to have it turn into a false accusation of abuse.
“This is what happens when you try to help too many people,” he said.
The accusations that Mr. Daskal abused the girl first emerged in May 2018, when he was arrested by sex crimes investigators for the New York Police Department.
At the time, he was charged with statutory rape, sexual abuse and other crimes. The federal charges against him include coercing a minor to engage in illicit sexual conduct and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.
Echoing the state case, the federal indictment accuses Mr. Daskal of abusing the girl over several months in 2017. The federal charges stem from the government’s contention that the illegal activity was not confined to Brooklyn but also involved crossing state lines.
After taking the victim in at his Borough Park home, the indictment says, Mr. Daskal groomed her for sex and then assaulted her repeatedly, both in Brooklyn and at his vacation house in the Catskills, in South Fallsburg, N.Y. To get there, prosecutors said, he traveled through New Jersey.
In October 2017, prosecutors said, the victim moved to Chicago to attend a new school. While she was there, Mr. Daskal stayed in touch with her via text message and Skype, asking that she pose nude for him during their video chats and also that she send him nude photographs.
In November of that year, he flew to Chicago to visit the girl, brought her to a hotel and sexually abused her, the indictment says.
Prosecutors said in a court filing that “throughout the abuse,” Mr. Daskal “regularly told the victim that he loved her” and also “threatened the victim not to tell anyone about their sexual relationship.”
In May 2018, though, after he continued to try to contact and follow the girl, she confided in a mentor who helped her report the abuse to the police, prosecutors wrote.
A spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney declined to comment on whether the federal charges made the state case moot, but said prosecutors in that office had “worked with the federal authorities to bring charges in federal court, where the potential punishment is more severe.”