Yaakov Daskal Brooklyn Shomrim leader set for trial in federal child sex case

 

For months, a Brooklyn Shomrim leader coerced a teenage girl into an illegal sexual relationship, using his status as the anti-crime patrol’s chief to scare her into keeping quiet, federal prosecutors hope to prove in court this month.

Jacob Daskal, 64, is slated to face trial in Brooklyn Federal Court on allegations he groomed the 15-year-old girl, transported her across state lines to rape her and convinced her to participate in a lurid Skype call.

“It’s just going to ruin your life if you tell people,” he warned the teen, according to the feds.

Daskal has denied the allegations, and filings from his lawyers show that his defense will likely be painting the girl as a liar who fabricated her accusations out of whole cloth. A woman who answered the phone at a number listed for Daskal declined to comment to the Daily News.

The alleged abuse started in 2017, after the teen, who was a member of the Orthodox Jewish community in Borough Park, started having problems with her family and asked a local mentor for help that spring, according to filings by federal prosecutors.

That mentor contacted the Borough Park Shomrim Society, which in turn linked the girl up with Daskal.

The Shormim, a volunteer group with ties to the NYPD and city politicians, works as a nonprofit auxiliary police of sorts in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. It has about 130 members, a 24-7 dispatch service and vehicles that have markings resembling police cars.

 

The group has been credited with helping the police make arrests [https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-crash-brooklyn-20210524-ticx5kefnvcg3lwkdlu4k4bpkq-story.html] and has raised the alarm on antisemitic hate crimes [https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/ny-hate-crimes-brooklyn-nypd-20191105-hn6zc5xtmvf37prjo7e5venzpa-story.html]. It has also seen its share of controversy, with critics accusing its members of violent vigilantism and stoking racial tensions with the borough’s Black population.

Daskal, who was the Borough Park Shomrim’s founder and chief, ostensibly stepped in to help the victim, letting her move in with him and his wife in Brooklyn in the short term, prosecutors allege. And when she moved in with her aunt and uncle to finish out the school year, Daskal kept in close contact.

Her aunt and uncle were leaving the city for the summer, though, so she needed a place to stay — and Daskal offered up a room in his summer home in South Fallsburg, N.Y.

That’s when the sexual abuse started, prosecutors said. One Saturday night in August 2017, he asked the girl to come to her bedroom, removed her shirt and started molesting her, the feds say.

He had sex with her in the house and at a nearby camp grounds on several occasions and drove her back to Brooklyn, crossing state lines through New Jersey, several times for more sexual encounters, the feds allege.

All the while, he texted “I love you” and that he was “going to make her into a lady,” regularly warning her to delete the messages because he feared going to jail because of her age, prosecutors said. He also repeatedly told her he “had police protection and was a ‘big’ guy in the Jewish community and would deny any allegations,” they added in court filings.

She moved back in with him that October, until enrolling in Bais Yaakov High School in Chicago, the feds say. She lived in a basement apartment in the Windy City and Daskal would communicate with her by text and Skype, convincing her to go nude in at least one video call, the feds allege.

Daskal traveled to Chicago that November for a one-day trip, having sex with her in a hotel and taking her to dinner, the feds say. The girl told a classmate about the relationship, though, who let the school’s principal know.

But the teen, who was afraid of Daskal, recanted what she told her classmate and the school expelled her, the feds allege.

She then went to school in Israel and Daskal stayed in touch, asking her to write him a letter calling the sex “therapy” and saying she loved him so he could use the letter as a legal defense, the feds say. He also asked her to write a letter denying they had a tryst in Chicago and, in a visit to Israel, he paid money to one of the victim’s friends to walk away and leave the two of them alone, the feds allege.

When the girl returned from Israel, she told her mentor about the relationship and called the NYPD soon after. That led to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office to file rape charges in state Supreme Court in May 2018.

In court filings last month, defense lawyers Henry Mazurek and Ilana Haramati asked the trial judge to limit what the jury can see and hear from calls and texts between the teen and Daskal — arguing that her texts, written after the alleged relationship, serve only to bolster her allegations and try to introduce actions that aren’t included in the charges against Daskal.

They’re also asking the federal prosecutor be barred from describing the teen as a “victim” and a “minor.”

“These terms would convey that Jane Doe’s accusations are truthful, and because the government believes her, the jury should, too,” they wrote to presiding Judge Nicholas Garaufis. “Telling the jury ‘that Jane Doe is a victim’ is tantamount to telling the jury she testified truthfully, presupposing Mr. Daskal’s guilt.”

Jury selection in the case is expected to start the week of July 17. Daskal faces federal coercion and enticement charges, as well as charges he transported a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

A well-known community leader with ties to politicos and police, Daskal has donated money to state Sen. Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn) and Mayor de Blasio in his 2009 run for public advocate.

The Shomrim has taken some hits to its reputation in recent years [https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-taj-patterson-shomrim-lawsuit-brooklyn-20220927-ct5rfw54dbbk5mmtnstlohpw5i-story.html], and in 2013, Daskal publicly defended the watchdog group’s actions after a man who shot four Shomrim members in a wild 2010 melee was acquitted of attempted murder [https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/man-acquitted-shomrim-brawl-article-1.1531138].

The group’s members tailed the man, David Flores, after hearing a report that he was seen masturbating near children. The masturbation allegation fell apart at trial, but Flores was still convicted of weapon possession and sentenced to 12 years in prison [https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/brooklyn-man-12-years-gun-charge-article-1.1583124].