Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Prosecutor Quits Over Jewish ‘Hooker’ Case

A top Brooklyn prosecutor has reportedly resigned amid questions over her handling of a racially charged Crown Heights prostitution case.

Lauren Hersh, the head of the district attorney’s sex trafficking unit, handled the probe that led to two black men being charged with raping an Orthodox Jewish girl and pimping her out starting when she was 13, the New York Times reported.. Two other men were charged with raping her.

She quit on May 24, the paper said.

Major questions emerged regarding the handling of the case last month. The Times said even before the indictments the woman reacanted some of the allegations and admitted that she was willingly having sex with the men for some time.

In April, a judge ordered two of the men freed from jail where they were being held pending trial. The other two remain behind bars on unrelated charges.

The case is explosive because authorities may have been too quick to believe the allegations against black men brought by a Jewish woman.

A message from our Publisher & CEO 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.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

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 credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link 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.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.