2 Lubavitcher Hasidim Acquitted

A Lubavitch official expressed today the hope that the acquittal last night of two visiting British Lubavitcher Hasidim in the 1978 assault on a Black teenager would be helpful in reducing inter-group tensions in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section, the international center of the movement.

The incident, in which Victor Rhodes, then 16, was beaten into a coma, led to the arrest and indictment on charges of attempted murder and assault of Lewis Brennan, 25, and Jonathan Hackner, 23. After a two-month trial and two days of deliberation, a State Supreme Court jury brought in the acquittal verdict.

Rabbi Shmuel Butman, director of the Lubavitch Youth Organization, also told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that it was “notable” that the acquittal took place just before Purim, March 2, and that, “just like in olden days,” Jews had been victorious over “malicious slanderers.”

The two Hasidim had denied participating in the assault on Rhodes which left him semi-conscious for more than two months before he recovered. the defense attorneys had contended that the British Hasidim had been victims of “mistaken identity” and that, if the police investigation of the incident had been more effective, the two Hasidim would not have been charged in the assault.

The Hasidim contended that the youth had been beaten by yeshiva students who had “overreacted” when the youth allegedly deliberately knocked off the hat of an elderly Jewish man. None of the prosecution witnesses could identify the defendants in court as among the men they had seen at the site of the assault.

Butman disclosed that, during the period in which the two Hasidim had been forced to remain in Crown Heights pending the trial, Hackner had become engaged, married and father of a new-born daughter. He said he did not know what the plans of the two Hasidim were, now that they were free to leave the United States.