UPDATE:: Yosef Kolko Loses Appeal, Will Stay In Prison Until At Least 2026
The former haredi camp counselor from Lakewood, New Jersey will serve the rest of 15-year sentence in state prison after a two-judge appellate court panel rejected his claim that he was coerced by members of the haredi community to falsely plead guilty to sexually assaulting an 11-year-old child in his care at the camp, the APP reported.
Judges Harry G. Carroll and Thomas W. Sumners of the Appellate Division of Superior Court ruled yesterday that Kolko’s claims were meritless.
Kolko pleaded guilty in May 2013 during his trial.
Kolko was a counselor at the Yachad summer camp run by the Yeshiva Bais Hatorah School in Lakewood. He also taught at Yeshiva Orchos Chaim School in Lakewood. The abuse took place there in 2008 and 2009, when the child was 11- and 12-years-old.
A former New Jersey yeshiva teacher who claimed he was pressured by his Orthodox Jewish community into admitting to sexually assaulting a boy was sentenced Thursday night to nearly 13 years in prison after a judge refused to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea.
Yosef Kolko, 39, had said in court papers that members of the Lakewood community carried out an unrelenting campaign to get him to plead guilty and to spare the community negative publicity. He claims they showed him YouTube videos "of how inmates kill people in jail for being molesters in order to pressure me into taking a plea and avoiding trial."
"If not for the extreme pressure by members of my community, I would not have pled guilty as charged," he said. "I reject plea bargains offered by the state because I am innocent of the crimes alleged."
But Superior Court Judge Francis Hodgson Jr. said Kolko "set out before he even pleaded guilty to game the system," seeing an opportunity "to get a do-over" of a trial that was not going well for him."
The judge said it was clear that Kolko never dreamed the victim and his father would testify against him.
N.J. yeshiva teacher gets 13 years for sexual abuse - Jewish World News Israel News | Haaretz
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