Austalian Chabad Child Abuser Denied Appeal — Faces 5 Years in Prison
Face of Scandal: Manny Waks, an advocate for child abuse victims in Australia, appears at hearing about scandal. Image by Tony Fink
An Orthodox Australian Jew jailed for child sexual abuse offenses had his application for appeal rejected.
David Samuel Cyprys was jailed last December for eight years for multiple sex crimes against nine boys, including several counts of rape against one former student.
Cyprys, who was employed as security guard at the Yeshivah Center in Melbourne, the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, sought leave to appeal the five rape charges.
“His application for leave was refused and therefore it never went to the bench of three judges,” a spokeswoman for the Victorian Court of Appeal said this week.
Cyprys now faces a minimum of five years and six months without parole.
“Thankfully this matter has now been concluded,” Tzedek, the advocacy group for Jewish victims of child sexual abuse, said in a statement. “We are particularly pleased for his many courageous victims. Justice has been served.”
The Cyprys news comes as the Office of Public Prosecutions confirmed the withdrawal of charges against Donald Cornell, a non-Jewish bus driver servicing Yeshivah College and the ultra-Orthodox Adass Israel school in Melbourne.
Cornell was facing six charges of alleged abuse against a girl dating back to the 1980s.
A spokesperson for the OPP told JTA: “Having regard to all the circumstances of the case, including the nature and seriousness of the offence and the fact that there was evidence that the accused was unfit to stand trial, it was determined that it was not in the public interest to prosecute, and the charges were withdrawn.”
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