Fifth sex suit filed against N.Y. yeshiva

By · March 31, 2008

A fifth lawsuit was filed against a New York yeshiva alleged to have covered up the molestation of several students by a rabbi.

Two Miami attorneys filed the $10 million suit Monday against Yeshiva-Mesivta Torah Temimah in Brooklyn alleging that their client, identified only as John Doe No. 6, was abused on multiple occasions as a student in the mid-1990s by Rabbi Yehuda Kolko.

The suit claims that the yeshiva’s head administrator, Rabbi Lipa Margulies, who is also named as a defendant, should have been aware of credible accusations against Kolko for at least 25 years prior to the plaintiff’s alleged abuse.

Several former students have accused Kolko, a former teacher and assistant principal at the school, of sexual abuse. At least four other pending lawsuits have alleged that the school knew of Kolko’s activities and took no action to protect the students.

Kolko was the subject of a 2006 story in New York magazine which said that molestation of young boys by rabbis was a “widespread problem” in the fervently Orthodox community. He is also facing criminal charges brought by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.