| From what I read, one or perhaps both of the brothers are Rabbi's.
The charges against them are felonies, thus the potential "victim's"
lack of desire to press charges is of little or no consequence.
The alleged victim can only bear witness (for the state), or file
suit for monetary value (mental anguish etc...) against the pair.
The police initially thought they had captured two Israeli Mossad
agents. I recall the police found pull over face masks with
slits for eyes, nose and mouth in their cars trunk.
As a personal commentary, I doubt they planned to assasinate anyone,
and the high bail certainly seems outrageous in light of their
background etc.. However, to be in possession of keys, masks,
an address, certainly does seem incriminating that what ever they
planned, is not socially acceptable behavior, and they were
guilty of being ill-advised to pursue their objective.
Ron
|
| From the usenet:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email protected] (Israel Pinkas)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Feld Fraud?
Date: 29 Dec 92 01:01:28 GMT
Sender: [email protected] (USENET News System)
In-Reply-To: [email protected]'s message of 28 Dec 92 18:49:27 GMT
I know Rabbi Yosef Levin first hand and daven at Chabad of Palo Alto
occasionally. In the last few weeks, I have heard the following directly
from Rabbi Levin:
1. He will probably not return any calls on this matter. The office is a
little overwhelmed by the matter, and they have already had some crank
calls.
2. The Feld's bail was reduced recently. I believe that the figure was
$750,000 each. They have almost raised it. (They don't want to deal
with a bond, as that would cost them the 10%.)
3. They are shackled hand and foot WHILE WITH VISITORS. This is standard
practice in CA for "dangerous criminals". Attempted murder falls into
this category. The shackles prevent full movement, but are not overly
restrictive. The way Rabbi Levin described them, the foot shackles are
light weight, with about 18" of chain between them. The hand shackles
chain the hands to a chain belt with about 12" of chain. This is enough
for general movement, but not enough to put on tefilin.
When they are in their cells, they are not shackled. Even though they
are shackled, there is bulletproof glass between them and the visitors.
Rabbi Levin is the Jewish chaplain for Santa Clara County. He has
arranged for people to go to the jail on a daily basis to help the Felds
put on tefilin, light chanukah candles, etc. (Rabbi Levin needs to go
for tefilin, as he is one of the few people that can be in the same room
with them.)
I believe that he has made arrangements for food. I haven't heard the
details.
SOP for CA jails is to separate the accused. The Felds are on different
floors in the jail.
4. Rabbi Levin has never stated that they are not guilty. He said that
they are not criminals. There is a difference.
-Israel Pinkas
|
| The following was posted on scj
On 19 Jan 1993 03:13:35 GMT, [email protected] (Alexandra Schmidt) said:
> The below is copied from the January 15 Jewish Bulletin of Northern
California:
> A rabbi and his brother accused of conspiring to murder a Palo Alto
> psychiatrist may never have been charged if law enforcement officials
> understood more about Israel and Orthodox Judaism, according to a
> defense attorney.
> Although the attorney only divulged some of the background information
> his team will use to defend brothers Israel (Scott) and Rabbi Avraham
> (Austin) Feld, he said the state's case is based largely on
> circumstantial evidence.
> Santa Clara County assistant district attorney Thomas O. Farris agreed
> it is circumstantial, but he called the evidence 'strong'. He also
> rejected the defense allegation that the state misconstrued evidence
> because of its naivete about Jewish issues.
> Avraham Feld, an Orthodox rabbi, psychologist, social worker, and
> father of five, and his brother Israel, 36, a sheep farmer and father
> of seven, were scheduled to go on trial Tuesday. Farris, however, is
> requesting a delay because the case was just reassigned to him.
> Palo Alto police arrested the Felds Nov. 19 on suspicion of
> shoplifting, and confiscated what the Santa Clara D.A.'s office
> believes is evidence pointing to a plot to burglarize and murder Dr.
> Saul Wasserman and his wife Judith.
> The D.A. alleges that the Felds came to murder the Wassermans at the
> behest of their daughter Rachel, a 22-year-old student at a
> progressive Jerusalem yeshiva, who years earlier had threatened to kill
> her parents.
> But one of the Felds' attorneys, Ephraim Margolin, contended that much
> of the state's case is derived from "cultural" differences between the
> United States and Israel, and that the evidence is "quite innocuous
> and can be explained."
> Some of the evidence the police found among the Felds' belongings,
> according to Margolin, were objects of religious necessity--he would
> not elaborate--but he said the state doesn't understand that.
> Another point in the prosecutors' case against the Felds is that they
> used aliases on their passports.
> Avraham Feld was identified as Avraham Peld on his Israeli passport,
> but Margolin said that was because the Hebrew letter for F is very
> similar to the letter P.
> Another passport problem authorities did not understand, the attorney
> said, is that both brothers also carried American passports because
> they hold dual citizenship. But on their U.S. passports they are
> identified by their American-born names, Austin and Scott.
> Margolin said law enforcement authorities also were confused about
> whether the two brothers worked for the Mossad, Israel's secret
> service.
> Avraham Feld is director of an organization called Mossad Maccabee
> Institute for Educational and Social Aid, a social welfare agency
> known for helping wayward young people, including those embroiled in
> cults.
> What Santa Clara police don't understand, according to Margolin, is
> that Mossad in Hebrew means foundation and can be found in the title
> of numerous Israeli agencies other than its secret service.
> While the district attorney's office won't counter Margolin's claims
> specifically, it insisted its case is based on hard evidence.
> Karen Sinunu, supervising district attorney, said the Felds'
> contentions "don't jibe with the physical evidence".
> The Felds, who were found with maps of the Wasserman house and the
> combination to a safe there, said "they wanted to go in and feel the
> aura of the house," according to Sinunu. "That's a preposterous
> explanation of why [they] would have knives and masks and ropes and
> gloves," all of which were confiscated in their rental car. "Adults
> don't go into other people's houses like that."
> Deputy D.A. Farris said he "wouldn't prosecute the case unless I feel
> someone is guilty," and "no one has offered an alternative that there
> was anything other than criminal activity going on. We believe there
> was a conspiracy that in our minds was formed in Israel."
> The defense is maintaining, however, that Avraham Feld had been
> counseling Rachel Wasserman in Israel because of problems she had with
> her parents, and that she gave him the keys to her home so he and his
> brother would have a place to sleep when they visited California.
> Meanwhile, supporters and family raised $500,000 in the UNited States
> and Israel to bail Avraham Feld out of Santa Clara County Jail two
> weeks ago. He is staying at a private home in the East Bay.
> As of press time, suporters were still trying to put together the same
> amount of money to bail out Israel Feld.
> Defense attorneys already have submitted to he courts 42 letters among
> hundreds from major figures in Israel testifying to the Felds'
> character.
> The letters paint a portrait of Jewish do-gooders committed to various
> kinds of tzedakah--helping people with physical disabilities, drug
> abusers, and those in religion cults--since they were in a New York
> yeshiva during the 1970s.
> Included in the court document is a 1975 New York Times article about
> how the Feld brothers cared for disabled children at their New York
> home while they studied at Yeshiva University.
> "I hereby confirm that I am familiar and know Mr. Avraham Feld...who
> is working devotedly to assist Klal Yisrael [all of Israel], who are
> in distress and who are finding a way and means to return to Judaism
> and their family environment," read a November 30 letter from
> Jerusalem deputy mayor Uri Lupolianski.
> In the letters and in conversations with people in Israel, Avraham Feld
> has been described as a tireless humanitarian who walks the streets of
> Jerusalem looking for wayward youth.
> The Felds' arrest apparently has stirred up concerns in the New York
> and Israeli Orthodox communities.
> Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, an American Orthodox folk musician, performed
> at a benefit concert for the Felds' defense fund in Jerusalem,
> according to someone who attended.
> Deputy D.A. Farris said he will begin sifting through all the letters
> and character references. "I need time to follow up all the evidence
> about what do-gooders they are," he said. "There's all kind of nice
> peiple who according to their friends would never commit a crime."
|
| Murder plot charge dropped as probe of Israelis goes on
By S.L. Wykes, Mercury News Staff Writer
Citing new evidence, Santa Clara County prosecutor Tom Farris
dropped conspiracy-to-murder charges Friday against two
American-born Israelis accused of plotting robbery and
revenge against a child psychiatrist whose daughter claimed
her family had sexually abused her.
Austin Feld, 38, a rabbi and community worker, and his
brother Scott, 36, a sheep farmer, still face charges of
conspiring to burglarize the home of psychiatrist Saul
Wasserman of Palo Alto. Bail, previously set at $500,000
each, was lowered to $100,000, and the Felds will be allowed
to return to Israel. They are scheduled to appear for trial
on May 10.
The district attorney's office dropped the murder-conspiracy
charges to gain time to check out new information gathered by
defense and prosecution investigators, Farris said. The
information includes a videotaped interview in which a
witness said Wasserman's only daughter, Rachel, had backed
away from some of the sexual abuse allegations involving her
family.
Friday was the prosecution's deadline to take the Felds to
trial without having to drop all charges and re-arrest them
because of their refusal to waive state-mandated time limits
for trials. After the more serious charges against them were
dropped Friday, they agreed to waive the deadline.
Continuing investigation "is what this is all about," Farris
said, "...for us to get at the truth." Prosecutors still are
awaiting Israeli permission to investigate in Israel.
The Felds were arrested November 19 last year after a Palo
Alto police officer discovered ski masks, knives, plastic
handcuffs, a rubber mallet and women's stockings in the trunk
of their rental car, parked less than half a mile from the
Wasserman's home. In Austin Feld's coat pocket were a
detailed map of the house home [sic] and a key to its doors.
He told authorities he was counseling Rachel.
The Wassermans told police that their 22-year-old daughter, a
Jewish studies student in Jerusalem, had twice threatened
them with death in the previous year. They said she'd had a
breakdown at the end of her junior year at Columbia
University and shortly after had accused them and her
grandfather of molesting her.
The decision to drop the murder-conspiracy charges follows
several weeks of behind-the-scenes discussions between the
district attorney's office and defense attorneys. Although
the prosecution has yet to go to Israel, one of the defense
attorneys spent a week there interviewing potential
witnesses. He later allowed prosecutors to see videotapes of
the interviews.
Interviews with two associates of Austin Feld, who runs a
non-profit social agency, the Mossad Maccabee, in Jerusalem,
put a new spin on some key pieces of prosecution evidence.
The Mossad provides services for the homeless, troubled
families and single parents.
Deborah Hillberg, a longtime volunteer at the agency, and
Alan Klein, the agency's special projects director, told
defense attorneys they were present at meetings with Rachel
Wasserman, a prospective volunteer at the agency, when Austin
Feld suggested she work out some of her confusion by drawing
diagrams of her family home in Palo Alto.
On one of the tapes, Hillberg, an American psychology student
studying in Israel, said she was immediately struck by Rachel
Wasserman's apparent confusion, unhappiness, and instability.
At subsequent meetings, she and Rachel talked about the use
of details in the house drawings "to help (Rachel Wasserman)
get a hold on what reality was," Hillberg said on the tape.
Hillberg said Rachel tried to "make everyone into a
counselor." Even at their first meeting, she said, Rachel
confided that she was an incest survivor, and that her
grandfather and parents were involved.
But she also told Hillberg "about a lot of different people
(assaulting her), until I didn't know what to believe,"
Hillberg said on the videotape. "I don't know that what
she's saying is true and even more so, I don't think she
knows either."
At one point, Hillberg said, Rachel said she had realized
that some of her "flashback" memories of childhood sexual
abuse were actually recollections of "modern-day"
relationships while she was a college student and didn't
involve her family.
By the end of October last year, a few days before Austin
Feld left for America, the initial hostility Hillberg noted
in Rachel Wasserman's attitude toward her parents had
softened to expressions of missing them, Hillberg said on the
tape.
Before the brothers left on their trip, Rachel Wasserman gave
Austin some family photographs and the house diagrams--
including one showing the locations of a safe and a shotgun--
and asked him to talk to her parents in hopes of improving
their relationship. It was typical of Feld to work for
harmony within a troubled family, Hillberg said.
At first, Hillberg said on the tape, Rachel Wasserman gave
Feld a key to her parent's house and said, "Go, just go, it
doesn't matter who's home."
But Feld refuse, saying that if he went, he wanted Rachel to
tell her parents of the upcoming visit.
The new evidence, Farris said, is "substantial, interesting,
and deserves to be checked out. We don't take it lightly but
we haven't formed any conclusions."
Defense attorney John Williams said he is pleased that
prosecutors are willing to take a fresh look at the case.
|