Paul Bass file photo
Judge Blue: "If anything, the new evidence, if submitted to a jury, would seal Greer’s doom."
Describing a yeshiva that turned into a “den of iniquity,” a state judge resoundingly rejected incarcerated sex offender Rabbi Daniel Greer’s bid for a new trial on the grounds that the convicted predator’s claims of “new evidence” only underscore his guilt.
State Superior Court Judge Jon Blue handed down that six-page decision on Thursday in the case Daniel Greer v. State of Connecticut.
Click here to read that decision in full.
Blue’s ruling marks the bathetic culmination of a year-long legal quest by Greer and his attorney, David Grudberg, to win Greer a new criminal trial for a 2019 case that saw a jury find him guilty of four counts of risk of injury to a minor.
Greer is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for that conviction, which stemmed from his sexually attacking a former student at his Elm Street yeshiva, Eliyahu Mirlis. (Greer is appealing the criminal conviction.)
In particular, the state judge’s decision on Thursday rejected claims made by Grudberg and Greer dating back to November 2021 that Greer deserves a new trial because of “new evidence” provided by Aviad “Avi” Hack.
Hack — a former student and then a former employee at the yeshiva who has also described having had a sexual relationship with Greer — presented that “new evidence” to the court in July. At that hearing, Hack testified that he believed Greer did not have sex with Mirlis until Mirlis was 16 years old. State statute defines a minor as being under 16. At a subsequent court hearing in September, Greer and Grudberg didn’t say a word about Greer’s sexual relationships with former students — but instead focused on a soured business relationship between the Greer and Hack families.
As evidenced by Blue’s Thursday ruling, the state judge remained unconvinced, offering instead a scathing and at times incredulous critique of Greer’s latest legal strategy.
“The Yeshiva of New Haven, Inc. (“Yeshiva”) was quite the den of iniquity in the opening years of the twenty-first century,” Blue wrote at the very beginning of his decision. “The dean of the Yeshiva, Daniel Greer, has been duly convicted of four counts of risk of injury to ‘E,’ a student of the Yeshiva. … Beyond this, the evidence in the present case, establishes that, at the same time he was abusing E, Greer — a married man — was engaging in a long-term sexual relationship with the assistant dean of the Yeshiva — a relationship that had begun over a decade previously when the assistant dean had himself been a student at the Yeshiva. The evidence shows that E once received a failing grade in the First Book of Samuel. It would seem that the administration deserved a failing grade in the Ten Commandments.”
Christopher Peak file photo
Rabbi Greer.
Blue points out in his decision that Mirlis was born in October 1987 and turned 16 in October 2003.
“E testified at trial that his sexual relationship with Greer began in 2002, when he was fourteen years old. … He also testified in a Federal diversity action for damages against Greer that Greer sexually abused him when he was between fourteen and seventeen years of age,” Blue wrote.
This petition for a new trial, the judge continues, Greer “essentially concedes that at least some of the alleged sexual acts did occur, but that they occurred after E’s 16th birthday.”
Blue wrote that Hack’s testimony about Greer beginning his sexual relationship with Mirlis after the latter had turned 16 is based on “a series of inferences, some of them quite thin. [Hack] reasoned that since Greer had not sexually abused him prior to his sixteenth birthday, the same pattern would necessarily apply to E. On cross-examination, however, Hack admitted that Greer had ‘groomed’ him prior to his sixteenth birthday. In addition, Greer first abused Hack in 1992, whereas E testified that Greer had first abused him in 2004, so it is not unreasonable to conclude that Greer’s seduction timetable may have altered in the intervening twelve years.”
Hack also testified that Greer could not have abused Mirlis prior to the latter turning 16 because Greer “detested” Mirlis until later in the 2003 – 2004 academic year, Blue wrote. “The flaw in this theory is obvious. Greer’s relationship with E was not a relationship based on love. It was a relationship based on predation. Greer may not have liked E but nevertheless found him to be a convenient object of sexual desire.”
In order to win a new criminal trial, Greer had to persuade the court that “the new evidence … will probably, not merely possibly, result in a different verdict at a new trial,” Blue wrote, quoting directly from a 2021 state Supreme Court decision.
“After a careful consideration of all of the evidence, the court is not persuaded that a jury would find Greer not guilty after hearing the new evidence submitted in the present case,” Blue concluded. “If anything, the new evidence, if submitted to a jury, would seal Greer’s doom.
“It is one thing to claim, as Greer’s able counsel did in the original trial, that E’s testimony concerning Greer’s sexual abuse was not credible. The obvious implication of counsel’s argument was that the alleged acts of sexual abuse had not been proven. It is another thing to claim, as Hack testified in the present case, that the acts of sexual abuse did occur, but at a slightly later time.
“Beyond this, if the jury were to hear that Greer had previously preyed upon Hack, ‘grooming’ him prior to his sixteenth birthday, the likelihood of conviction would approach a near certainty. Defense attorneys ordinarily attempt to exclude evidence of previous sexual misconduct. It is the rare defense attorney who affirmatively attempts to introduce such evidence.”
And so, Blue wrote, “it is exceedingly unlikely that Hack would even be called as a witness by the defense in a new trial. If anything, it is the State that would attempt to introduce such evidence.
“For reasons set forth above, the court is not persuaded that a jury would find Greer not guilty if it heard the new evidence.
“The Petition For New Trial is denied.”
“ At that hearing, Hack testified that he believed Greer did not have sex with Mirlis until Mirlis was 16 years old.”
Can I say, Tomato, Tomahto? Why doesn’t this guy go do his time in protective custody like the rest of the child molesters who get convicted? Enough already. 🤮
Child molesters don’t even deserve to have an end date to their sentences.