Abuse Charges Dropped Against Aussie Chabad Leader
Multiple charges against a former Chabad-Lubavitch youth leader in Melbourne have been dropped.
Aron “Ezzy” Kestecher, 27, was charged last year with four counts of indecent acts on a child under 16. All four charges were withdrawn Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice confirmed.
Kestecher revealed the news on Facebook, writing “All charges gone.” In a later post, he wrote: “I never lost hope in God. It was Judaism that was the issue.”
Kestecher declined to comment on the case to JTA.
The news comes two weeks after David Cyprys, a former security guard at Yeshivah College in Melbourne, was ordered to stand trial next July on 41 counts of child sex abuse. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges allegedly perpetrated on 12 victims who were students at Yeshivah College in the 1980s. Three of the victims now live in America.
The college, which shares a campus with the Chabad headquarters in Melbourne, has reassured parents it has the strictest protocols in place to safeguard their students.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Dive In
-
Fast Forward Cornell’s new Jewish president says he is ‘very comfortable with where Cornell is currently’
-
Fast Forward Digital breadcrumbs lead to the team behind Jewish Onliner, the AI-powered website that got a Yale scholar suspended
-
Sports The Trail Blazers let Israeli starter Deni Avdija cook, and minted a franchise player in the process
-
Fast Forward What Mahmoud Khalil says about Gaza and Israel in ‘The Encampments’ documentary
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Opinion Is this new documentary giving voice to American Jewish anguish — or simply stoking fear?
- 4
Opinion Mike Huckabee said there’s ‘no such thing as a Palestinian.’ It’s worth thinking about what that means
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Think every Palestinian in Gaza is Hamas? This week’s protests prove you’re wrong
-
Opinion A Palestinian Oscar-winner’s arrest shocked the world. For these Jewish activists, it was terrifyingly normal
-
Opinion In the Trump administration and Israel, a grotesque display of virility coupled with a loss of humanity
-
Fast Forward Cornell’s new Jewish president says he is ‘very comfortable with where Cornell is currently’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.