Aussie Chabad Camp Director Guilty of Child Abuse
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
A Jewish man living in America pleaded guilty to indecent assault on a child while he was volunteering at a Chabad-run camp in Australia in the 1980s.
Daniel “Gug” Hayman, a former director of the Yeshiva Center, the headquarters of Chabad in Sydney, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of indecent assault. It was the first case of child sexual abuse in the Sydney Jewish community to go to trial. In Melbourne, three men were jailed last year for sexually molesting Jewish children.
Hayman was charged with two counts of gross indecency relating to alleged sexual abuse of two boys in the 1980s, but those charges were dropped as part of the plea bargain. In a separate trial, Hayman was acquitted on a technicality Thursday of an alleged act of indecency against a female complainant.
He was arrested late last year after Tzedek, an advocacy group for Jewish victims of child sexual abuse, tipped off police that he was returning to Sydney for his mother’s funeral.
Hayman will be sentenced on May 27.
A spokesman for Yeshiva declined to comment this week, referring to the statement it released when Hayman was arrested last year. Although Hayman was involved in the Yeshiva Center, he was never an employee or teacher with responsibilities for children, according to Yeshiva.
“Sydney’s Yeshiva Center should now clarify its position regarding what it knew in relation to allegations against Mr Hayman,” said Manny Waks, chief executive of Tzedek. “We have now achieved another important milestone: the first child sexual abuse-related trial involving the Jewish community outside of Victoria.”
Last year David Kramer and David Cyprys, two former employees of Chabad’s headquarters in Melbourne, were jailed for child sex crimes. Shannon Francis, a non-Jewish basketball coach for Maccabi Victoria, was also jailed.
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