PERV-CASE RABBI HIRES DIDDY LAWYER

PFMLIT General, GOOD POLICING CATCHES SEX OFFENDERS AND OTHERS, INTERNET OFFENDER CASES, NEW YORK, RABBI, SEX OFFENDERS AND OTHERS IN POSITIONS OF TRUST

Rabbi Israel Kestenbaum, 55, allegedly pursued a 13 year old girl on the Internet.  Manhattan prosecutors revealed creepy details of the rabbi's pursuit, including the black bag of condoms and lubricants they say he brought to their first date.  We could meet and kiss, he typed in a message to a male undercover cop posing online as Katie.  In another message sent over the course of eight days last month, before he arranged a date at a lower Manhattan Starbucks, he allegedly typed - among fare more graphic suggestions - I dream of us being naked together...and u and me hugging and kissing.  At least one image of child pornography was found on the rabbi's computer.  Kestenbaum's wife was already divorcing him and wants him kept away from their 9 year old daughter.  The judge set bail at $5,000 cash or bond, which means the rabbi could free himself with as little as a 10 percent payment on a bond, or $500.  To go free, he must turn in his passport, which by evening was still nowhere to be found.

The rabbi has traded his first attorney for defense powerhouse Benjamin Brafman.  Kestenbaum, who hails from Highland Park, New Jersey, but made a local name for himself as a Ground Zero chaplain, walked into a routine appearance with the former lawyer for Sean P. Diddy Combs.

(New York)