Lawyer Blames Kletzky Killing on ‘Inbreeding’
The lawyer for accused killer Levi Aron shockingly blamed the murder of little Leiby Kletzky on “inbreeding” in the tight-knit Hasidic community.
Howard Greenberg told a Brooklyn court hearing Wednesday that Aron is insane and suggested that intermarriage between close relatives may have caused his mental problems, the Daily News reported.
“There’s inbreeding in that community,” Greenberg said.
He asserted that relatives risk genetic defects by marrying in the insular community of Boro Park, where both Aron and Kletzky lived.
“That’s an aspect of his familial history,” Greenberg said of Aron, without offering details.
The lawyer told the New York Post outside the courtroom that he will pursue an insanity defense. Aron has already been found fit for trial.
“It’s a very simple case,” Greenberg told the paper. “You don’t do this unless you’re crazy.”
Kletzky, 8, was walking home from day camp alone for the first time when he was allegedly snatched off the street by Aron in July.
The hardware clerk allegedly plied the boy with sedatives before smothering him amid a massive search in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood. He allegedly dismembered the little boy and stashed the remains in his freezer.
Police found Kletzky’s body parts in Aron’s apartment and in a trash bin on the street nearby.
Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) told the Post he is outraged over the lawyer’s “inbreeding” claims, which he called “insulting.”
“This lawyer is simply out of his freaking mind,” Hikind said. “He’s a sick, self-hating Jew who’s making a mockery of this case. It’s insulting and degrading to our entire community.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
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. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
