A prominent American rabbi in Washington secretly videotaped more than 150 naked women for five years at a Jewish ritual bath located next to a synagogue, according to US law enforcement officials.
Barry Freundel, 63, an orthodox rabbi at the Kesher Israel synagogue for over 25 years, filmed 152 nude women while they performed the ritual cleansing bath, federal prosecutors told victims during a meeting at the US Attorney’s Office in Washington.
During the meeting at the US Attorney’s Office, which is part of the US Department of Justice, federal prosecutors said the rabbi filmed 88 of the women within the last three years and another 64 were filmed starting from 2009.
The meeting was closed to the press, but three people who attended told The Associated Press what was discussed. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the closed-door meeting.
Freundel was arrested in October on voyeurism charges after a person discovered a hidden camera disguised as a digital clock radio in the changing and showering area of The National Capital Mikvah, a ritual cleansing bath adjacent to the Kesher Israel synagogue.
Prosecutors initially discovered nude recordings of six women late last year, but indicated more had been filmed.
Other media storage devices were found after a search of his home, and he has since been fired from the synagogue. Freundel faces up to six years in prison if convicted. The next hearing in the case is February 19.
The Kesher Israel synagogue, located in the affluent Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, is over 100-years-old and its worshipers have included prominent politicians, jurists, diplomats, authors and journalists.