Mikvah-peeping rabbi appeals prison sentence

Barry Freundel contests 6.5-year sentence for filming women nude during ritual bath

By JTA 13 July 2015, 3:27 am

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Rabbi Barry Freundel leaves the DC Superior Court House in Washington, February 19, 2015. (AP file Photo/Cliff Owen)

Rabbi Barry Freundel is appealing the length of his prison sentence for filming women nude at a ritual bath.

Freundel, who was sentenced in May to 6 1/2 years for videotaping dozens of women at a Washington, D.C., mikvah, is arguing that he should have been sentenced to no more than one year in prison, the Washington Post reported Friday.

A hearing on the appeal will be held in Washington Superior Court on July 31.

Freundel, 63, was given 45 days for each of the 52 counts of misdemeanor voyeurism for the videotaping that took place between 2012 and 2014. He will serve the sentences successively.

His attorney is arguing that the rabbi should not have been sentenced separately for each of his victims and instead only for one act of videotaping, the Post reported.

Freundel is being held in isolation in a Washington jail after prison officials received threats against him.

The rabbi also recorded an additional 100 women beginning in April 2009 who were not part of the criminal complaint due to the statute of limitations.