I don’t know anything about Baruch Mordechai Lebovits (pictured) aside from what has been reported in the media.

Those reports have not been good. He is a Chasidic travel agent and brother of the Nikolsburg Rebbe. He is also a married man with 5 children and 20 grandchildren. And he has been convicted on 8 out of 10 counts of sexual molestation. It took jurors only three hour to reach that verdict.

The evidence must have been pretty damning. And yet the verdict was met by gasps and sobs from Lebovits’s supporters. What’s more the verdict does not even take into account suspicions that he was somehow involved with Motti Borger, the young Chasan who jumped to his death a couple of days after his wedding.

The pain and suffering of sex abuse victims has been discussed many times in the media. But little has been discussed about a molester’s family. Leibovits has proclaimed his innocence throughout the trial and his family believes him. As does his community.

I cannot imagine what they must be going through. What does his wife think? Does she still believe he is innocent? How does a loving child deal with all this testimony from victims about their father’s molestations of them? What thoughts can possibly be going through their minds now? They must love him as a father. And yet - how can they?! He apparently led a double life. He seemed to raise a decent family, and was a respected member of his community.

Mr. Lebovits has been convicted. There little doubt about his guilt. He is a sick man but according experts who deal with these problems his sickness is an incurable one. His libido is ‘wired wrong’. And I don’t think it can…