December 12, 2024 • 27 mins
In the conclusion of “The Rabbi’s Wife,” the trial of Rabbi Fred Neulander reaches a dramatic climax. As Neulander defends himself on the stand, the prosecution's star witness, Len Jenoff, faces intense scrutiny. Before the high-stakes trial is over, someone finally breaks their silence.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Rabbi Fred Newlander was on trial for the murder of
his wife, Carol Newlander. He's accused of hiring len Jenoff
as his hitman. As the trial came to its climax,
Rabbi Fred Newlander decided to take the stand in his
own defense.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Fred had virtually hung himself when he took the stand.
He was his own worst witness.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
But the prosecution struggled with their own star witness, len Jenoff, to.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Convict this man. You have to believe what len Jenoff
told you was the truth.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Having him take the stand was very risky by the prosecution,
and the defense did a great job of attempting to
shred Jenoff to pieces.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
The whole case boiled down to who was more credible,
the adulter as holy man or the line hit man.
We are in South Jersey today for the conclusion of
who killed Carol. I'm Sloane Glass and this is American Homicide.
Just a note that this episode contained some graphic content.
(01:10):
Please take care while listening. After three and a half
weeks of heated testimony, the case of Rabbi Fred Newlander
went to the jury. At the same time, a curious
book debut in bookstores titled Keep your Mouth Shut and
Your Arms Open. The book explored how to be a
good Rabbi and was written by Fred Newlander, by the
(01:32):
way I looked, and that book is still available online.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Council, we've received a note from the jury.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
On the seventh day of deliberations, Judge Baxter received a
handwritten note from the jury's foreman.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
It reads as, follows your honor.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
After revisiting evidence and testimony, we the jury have concluded
that a unanimous decision on all three counts is not possible.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
On that note, I am going to declare a mistrial.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I was stunned. Everybody was stunned. How could this possibly be?
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Arthur mcgita, who wrote extensively about this case, was sitting
with Carrol's family when Judge Baxter called a mistrial.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I did not want to turn around. I did not
want to look in their faces. How dare they let
him go out on the street and they did. I
know what I felt and I know what I thought,
and it had to have been just a fraction of
their emotions.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Judge Baxter ordered a retrial for Rabbi Newlander. This time,
the trial would head about an hour north of cherry
Hill to Freehold, New Jersey. Freehold is where Bruce Springsteen
grew up and even sang about it in his nineteen
eighty five song My Hometown. The reason Judge Baxter moved
the trial was to find an impartial jury.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It was difficult finding a jury because this case had
been so well publicized.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Mcgita was among the dozens of journalists who packed the
tiny courtroom their reporter.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
There were cameras. It was a madhouse. It was a frenzy.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Just like the first trial, The Rabbi's retrial was aired
from start to finish on Court TV. This allowed people
from all over the country to play armchair duror and
debate the guilt or innocence of Rabbi Fred Newlander. But
back in Cherry Hill, most had already made up their minds.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
A majority of the residents of Cherry Hill, of South Jersey, Jory,
the Congregants from Macorse alone believed that Fred Newlander had
a hand somehow in killing Carol.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
In the first trial, jurors heard from Rabbi Newlander's mistress
and four witnesses who said the Rabbi wanted his wife dead.
Three of the twelve jurors didn't believe the state proved
its case beyond a reasonable doubt, which resulted in a hungery.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I could not believe that so much evidence against the
Rabbi was eliminated, discard disgraced by the jury.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
In late two thousand and two, most of the players
from the first trial returned for the retrial, including the prosecutor,
James Lynch.
Speaker 6 (04:08):
You're going to hear that Fred Newlander, the Rabbi was
a man of God who acted in a thoroughly ungodly fashion.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
A year had passed between trials, and Rabbi Fred Newlander
appeared much thinner and his gray hair shorter. He also
had a new lawyer named Michael Riley.
Speaker 7 (04:29):
Let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen. There is
no evidence of mister Newlander's involvement in this case unless
you listen to the words from the mouth of Len General.
There is nothing. There's nothing physical, there's no business wreckers,
there's no bank records, there is nothing except the mouth
of Len Gennal.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Just like in the first trial, the defense said Len
Jenoff could not be trusted, and frankly, from everything we've
learned so far, Len was not credible or trustworthy.
Speaker 7 (04:56):
Glen Jenoff's life is nothing but he even, in an
effort to support this belief that he is a CIA agent,
had a picture of Ronald Reagan ostensibly autographed dar Lenny
from Ronnie.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Many said the handwriting on that photo looked more like
len Jenoff's than Ronald Reagan's.
Speaker 7 (05:18):
There's nothing real about this man.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
He's a liar.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
The defense argued it was len Jenoff who came up
with the plan to rob and murder Carol Newlander.
Speaker 7 (05:27):
Len Jenoff became aware that she would take large sums
of money home from her cake company. Glen Jenoff went
to the new Lander house that night to kill her
and steal her money.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
The defense also suggested the rabbi's ex mistress, Elaine Sencini,
had franked him.
Speaker 7 (05:45):
Does she have a reason to be angry at this
person who betrayed her too?
Speaker 6 (05:51):
He was seeing other women.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
He was nine cheating on his wife.
Speaker 7 (05:53):
He was cheating on his girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Just like the first trial. Jurors her testimony from Elaine Cencini,
Peppy Levin, len Jenof, and Paul Michael Daniels. Their testimony
was nearly identical to the first trial, except for one witness,
the rabbi's son, Matthew. By then, Matthew was a doctor,
and the prosecutor referred to him by his title doctor Newlander.
(06:17):
Back on the night of his mother's murder, Matthew was
working as an emt. In fact, he was one of
the first responders to his mother's murder at their home.
I bring that up because of how Matthew's testimony began.
Listened closely to his testimony as he describes arriving at
his house.
Speaker 8 (06:35):
Here are two large guys, and they physically grabbed me
and brought me back down the driveway to where I
finally saw for for it.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Did you catch that? It was so subtle that you
may have missed it. But doctor Matthew Newlander referred to
his father as Fred. That testimony caused Fred Newlander to
immediately whisper into his lawyer's ear and ask, why is
he calling me Fred? But calling his father Fred was
(07:04):
just the beginning.
Speaker 8 (07:06):
When I first saw him, he looked kind of the
way he looks right now, sort of blank and unemotional.
He said nothing to me. He wasn't breathing heavily, wasn't
crying or showing any outward sign of grief or remorse
at all. He didn't have a drop of blood on
(07:28):
his clothing.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Matthew didn't hold back about his father's lack of emotion
or perceived lack of emotion over his mother's murder.
Speaker 8 (07:36):
Never, at any time did he show any signs outwardly
of grief remorse.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
And never, in all the times.
Speaker 8 (07:45):
That I've seen him in the year since, as he
ever cried, never had a pleasant memory of her, or
seemed to grieve or worn for her in any way.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
What you're hearing is the one huge difference between the
first and second trial. Matthew Newlander was no longer protecting
his father.
Speaker 8 (08:03):
I asked him, where's mom? What happened? Is she okay?
Is someone taking care of her? His answers were really
just one repeated over and over again. Everything's going to
be okay, Everything's going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Matthew said he and his dad had had many conversations
about the night of his mother's murder, so.
Speaker 8 (08:28):
He was repulsed by what he saw. Two repulsed to
go in to see if she was okay. I found
my wife for a child on the floor right. I
would want to go try to help and you know,
if he couldn't help, fine, but at least you're there.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
A couple of the jurors wiped away tears as Matthew
struggled to choke back his own. Ironically, it was while
talking about his dad's lack of emotion.
Speaker 8 (09:01):
I would have given my right arm for five minutes
just to sit there with her and hold her hand
and tell her that I was there.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Matthew's heartbreaking testimony stunned the defense, but would it be
enough to overshadow the juror's doubts about len Jenoff. If
there was one major difference between the first trial and
the retrial of Rabbi Fred Newlander, it was the testimony
(09:30):
of his son, Matthew. While on the witness stand, Matthew
Newlander only referred to his father by his first name, Fred.
It was something even the rabbi's defense lawyer did not ignore,
so he calls.
Speaker 7 (09:42):
Father bade to call him father, no, to call him Fred.
Right from the beginning, Fred does fread.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
That the anger of that young man in the sadness
was all.
Speaker 6 (09:51):
Of a whelming.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Interestingly enough, the defense did not put the rabbi back
on the witness stand. Instead, they focused on len Jenoff's
long history of lying, and urged the jurors not to
let emotion cloud their judgment.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Ladies and gentlemen, emotion, it's not evidence.
Speaker 6 (10:08):
Passion is not true.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Prosecutor James Lynch had the final word.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Mister Leonard Jennoff.
Speaker 6 (10:17):
Is not being held up to you as a model citizen.
He is a man who took money to kill someone.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
The case went to the seven men and five women
of the jury on Friday, November fifteenth, two thousand and two.
The following Wednesday, Judge Baxter received a note from the
jury's fore women.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
I understand from your note that you have reached a verdict. Yes,
we have.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
After twenty seven hours of deliberations, the jury's for women
stood before Judge Baxter. When she spoke, her voice quivered,
and there was something else. She tears in her eyes.
Before anyone could guess the meaning of those tears, the
verdict echoed through the courtroom.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Guilty.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Nearly eight years after the murder of Carol Newlander, her husband,
Rabbi Fred Neulander, was found guilty of capital murder. In
the back of the courtroom, Carol's siblings all locked hands,
put their heads down and started to cry. Meanwhile, the
Rabbi stood there in a daze. As Judge Baxter addressed
(11:31):
the jury.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, having found the defendant,
Fred Newlander, guilty of murder, you now have, as you know,
the added responsibility of determining what penalty for that crime
is to be imposed upon him.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
A guilty verdict in a capital murder trial triggers what's
known as the penalty phase. This meant these twelve jurors,
one who already had tears in her eyes, had the
a I did responsibility of deciding the Rabbi's fate, and
at the time, New Jersey still had the death penalty.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
Under the law enacted by our legislature, the penalty may
be either death or a term of years between thirty
years and life imprisonment, of which thirty years must be
served before the defendant is eligible for parole.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Much like the trial itself, the prosecutors and the defense
both presented their arguments for what they considered just punishment,
and that included testimony from the Rabbi.
Speaker 9 (12:38):
I am here to a for aplea for my life.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Fred Newlander was sixty one years old at the time
and delivered what was arguably the most important sermon of
his life.
Speaker 9 (12:48):
If I look at the days of the years of
my life before the first of November of nineteen ninety four,
they were filled with great blessings. First and foremost, I
had my wife, Carol. She was a remarkable woman, and
(13:16):
I miss her, and I loved her, and I love her.
Now there are those who I'm sure behind their hands
with snicker, I have acknowledged for the longest time my
behavior that was reprehensible, and my behavior that was disgraceful.
(13:43):
And yet.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
You must believe I.
Speaker 9 (13:46):
Loved her and love her. Starting today, there is another
sense of the days of the years of my life
that will unfold. I do not know where I will be,
quite obviously don't know now, But wherever I will be,
(14:12):
there will be men who cannot read.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
The Rabbi explained that in Hebrew, the word rabbi means teacher.
Speaker 9 (14:21):
I'm a good teacher, I was a good teacher. I
can be a good teacher. And I want to help
that young man that will enhance the days of the
years of my life. By helping the days of the
years of that young man's life. That's all I want
is that opportunity to teach. I beseech you, I importune you,
(14:46):
I beg of you for that privilege, and I promise,
I promise that I will do whatever a teacher should
do to enrich the lives of people that come in
contact with that teacher.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
The rabbi smiled and nodded to the jury before slowly
walking back to the defense table. He sat down, removed
his glasses, and looked exhausted. Two full days past before
the jury returned. That's when the four women handed a
note to Judge Baxter.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
After due deliberation, the jury cannot unanimously agree upon punishment.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
This shifted the responsibility back to Judge Baxter, who now
had to impose a sentence. At another hearing in early
two thousand and three, witnesses from both sides stated their
case for punishment, including the rabbi's sister in law.
Speaker 10 (15:45):
He is truly a monster beyond human comprehension, and he
should never ever be free again.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Carol's brother also didn't mince words.
Speaker 11 (15:56):
You are the lowest form of humanity. You dishonored Carol, yourself,
your children, this court, your congregation.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
The rabbitt and.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Judaism absent from the hearing were the rabbi's son Matthew
and daughter Rebecca. Instead, they sent letters to the court.
Rebecca wrote, I'm not sure that he will ever fully
comprehend what his ego, maniacal and selfish acts did to
my family and me. Matthew went a step further and
(16:27):
called his father a sociopath and a worthless, soulless, pathetic
shell of a man. Throughout both of these trials, the
third Newlander child, Benjamin, steered clear of the courtroom. Until now,
Benjamin had refrained from commenting and testifying about his mother's murder,
(16:49):
but that day all eyes were on him as he
walked into the courtroom and broke his silence about his father.
Speaker 11 (16:55):
Things like soccer games, swim meets, school events at as
many as he could. I remember seeing him there, and
you know, those were the good times. I knew that
when I needed somebody to be there for me for
any particular difficulty that I was having, he and I
(17:18):
could relate on a very special level. And I knew
that as busy as he was, he would always be
able to find time to just guide me through whatever
issues that I was having. That's what he did for
many people was to guide them, and I knew that
I could always count on him to be around for that.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Benjamin Newlander was now returning the favor for his dad.
Speaker 11 (17:41):
I'm a teacher, and one of the biggest reasons that
I'm a teacher is because of my father. So I
think that speaks for just his influence on me. I
think he led me down an amazing path, and I
think that there are other people that he can do
(18:01):
that for. And just give him the chance to show
that he can still do that, because I know that
you can.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Ultimately, Fred Newlander's fate was in Judge Baxter's hands, and
after careful consideration, she spared him the death penalty, instead
issuing the maximum sentence short of death, thirty years to life.
Here's his former lawyer, death sucker.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
He's in a prison where almost everybody in the prison
is serving tremendously long sentences, their life sentences. The last
time I saw him, he still professes his innocence, says
he had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Rabbi Fred Newlander was incarcerated in a maximum security prison
in New Jersey. It's one of the country's oldest facilities.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
I feel horribly for the family. I mean, I don't
think he's had any contact with his children. I spent
a lot of time with each of his children preparing
for this trial, and they were all nice kids, they
really were. It's a horrible tragedy for them. I think
(19:10):
Matthew was legitimately horrified by his father. First, your mother's murdered,
and then your father's convicted of the murdered. Can't get
much worse.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
More than eight years and two trials later, Rabbi Fred
Newlander was convicted of hiring a hitman to kill his
wife Carol. In two thousand and three, Rabbi Newlander agreed
to an interview with Barbara Walters, and once again the
Rabbi declared his innocence.
Speaker 10 (19:45):
If you were innocent, why would God do this to you?
Speaker 9 (19:50):
I don't think God is a great puppeteer. I think
what happened to me was driven by human beings.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Rabbi Newlander said law enforcement was under an enormous amount
of pressure to solve the murder and used his infidelity
to label him a murderer.
Speaker 10 (20:07):
Am By, as God is your witness, did you have
anything to do with your wife's murder?
Speaker 9 (20:15):
No?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
He said that of all the victims, he cried the
most for his children. He added that he was devastated
that two of them wrote him off.
Speaker 10 (20:25):
Aren't you tormented? If you're sitting here an innocent man,
you have.
Speaker 9 (20:30):
No idea how much rage I.
Speaker 10 (20:32):
Have shot it.
Speaker 9 (20:32):
You know, one of the things that I have been
trained to do is hold on to my emotions.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
The rabbi explained that there's no book that says this
is how a guilty person acts, and this is how
an innocent person acts.
Speaker 9 (20:46):
I can't express remorse for a murder that I did
not commit.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Afterwards, Barbara Walters called their interview eerie because the rabbi,
who claimed to be enraged, laid no emotion throughout their interview.
As for Len Jenoff and Paul Michael Daniels, the two
who actually carried out the murder of Carol Newlander, both
pled guilty and were sentenced to twenty three years in prison.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I've dealt in one way or another with the new
Lander case since nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Arthur mcgida wrote the book The Rabbi and the hit Man,
and there was one final and bizarre twist in this case.
In May two thousand and eight, Len Jennof filed emotion
challenging his sentence. In that motion, he claimed ineffective counsel
and stated that his lawyer slept through most of his
(21:42):
court proceedings. He also alleged he had been promised significantly
less time than twenty three years.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Len Jenoff was such a dubious and questionable character, and
in the best of all worlds, nobody should believe anything
he ever said.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
In two thousand and nine, len Jenov said he had
given a lot of thought to what happened and wanted
to set the record straight. In assigned affidavit, len wrote,
Fred Neulander never asked me to kill his wife, and
to the best of my knowledge, he never had any
idea of any attempt on his wife's life. In other words,
(22:23):
len Jenoff recanted and said the incident at the Newlanders
was a robbery gone bad and not a murder for hire.
He said he made up the story that implicated the
rabbi because he was promised leniency if he cooperated with
the prosecutor's office.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
How could Jenov be believed? Now he's wild over and
over again, he admits, but he claims he's telling the truth.
Just this one time.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Well, it turns out len Jenov wasn't done lying. Three
years after retracting his confession, Jenoff flip flopped yet again.
In twenty twelve, Len told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he
regretted forcanting his statement. He said, I testified at two
trials that Fred Newlander did hire me, in fact, to
(23:12):
kill his wife and make it look like a robbery,
and that is the truth. Len called his actions immoral
and again reverted to his initial testimony at the trials.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Lender Jenoff, who was not a man of his word,
had never been a man of his word, and absolutely
nothing coming out of Jenoff's mouth could be believed.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
In twenty fourteen, both Len Jenoff and Paul Michael o'daniels
walked out of prison free men. They both had served
more than fourteen years before being released from prison. Throughout
the years, Rabbi Fred Newlander has appealed his conviction and
petitioned for a new trial each time he was denied.
In a twenty twelve interview with NBC ten in Philadelphia,
(23:59):
the rabbi mid his behavior in his marriage was appalling.
He called himself an embarrassment and said he should have
behaved better, but maintained he did not kill his wife.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I would hope that there was some deep core of
Fred Newlander that was speaking to him, nagging at him
and telling him he was a shame and a shambles
of a human being. We'll never know what happened.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
He's right, we will never know the full story about
why Carol Newlander was murdered because in April twenty twenty four,
the rabbi took those answers to his grave.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Fred Newlander, a former Cherry Hill rabbi who was convicted
in the murder for hire of his wife, has died
in prison at the age of eighty two.
Speaker 7 (24:53):
Correctional officers found Fred Newlander unresponsive on Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
After performing CPR and using an ad a new Land
was pronounced oad of the hospital. No cause of death
was released to the public, and according to one of
the rabbi's former lawyers, up until the time of his death,
the rabbi had been counseling other inmates on religion. Next
time on American homicide. When a popular teenage artist goes missing,
(25:22):
her community jumps into action, but when police discovered a
secret box full of cash, questions are raised around if
police were looking for a crime scene or the trail
of a young woman who planned her own disappearance. I'm
Sloan Glass. We head to Neptune City, New Jersey for
the case of Sarah Stern. That's next time on American Homicide.
(25:47):
You can contact the American Homicide team by emailing us
at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. That's American
Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. American Homicide is hosted
and written by me Sloan Glass and is a production
of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in
(26:08):
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Nancy Glass and Todd Gans. The series is also written
and produced by Todd Gans, with additional writing by Ben
Fetterman and Andrea Gunny. Our associate producer is Kristin Melcurie.
Our Ihearty is Ali Perry and Jessica Crimechak. Audio editing
(26:30):
and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, Dave Seya, and Britt Robashow.
Additional editing support from Nico Ruka, Tanner Robbins, and Patrick Walsh.
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(26:50):
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the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Rabbi Fred Newlander was on trial for the murder of
his wife, Carol Newlander. He's accused of hiring len Jenoff
as his hitman. As the trial came to its climax,
Rabbi Fred Newlander decided to take the stand in his
own defense.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Fred had virtually hung himself when he took the stand.
He was his own worst witness.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
But the prosecution struggled with their own star witness, len Jenoff, to.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Convict this man. You have to believe what len Jenoff
told you was the truth.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Having him take the stand was very risky by the prosecution,
and the defense did a great job of attempting to
shred Jenoff to pieces.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
The whole case boiled down to who was more credible,
the adulter as holy man or the line hit man.
We are in South Jersey today for the conclusion of
who killed Carol. I'm Sloane Glass and this is American Homicide.
Just a note that this episode contained some graphic content.
(01:10):
Please take care while listening. After three and a half
weeks of heated testimony, the case of Rabbi Fred Newlander
went to the jury. At the same time, a curious
book debut in bookstores titled Keep your Mouth Shut and
Your Arms Open. The book explored how to be a
good Rabbi and was written by Fred Newlander, by the
(01:32):
way I looked, and that book is still available online.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Council, we've received a note from the jury.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
On the seventh day of deliberations, Judge Baxter received a
handwritten note from the jury's foreman.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
It reads as, follows your honor.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
After revisiting evidence and testimony, we the jury have concluded
that a unanimous decision on all three counts is not possible.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
On that note, I am going to declare a mistrial.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I was stunned. Everybody was stunned. How could this possibly be?
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Arthur mcgita, who wrote extensively about this case, was sitting
with Carrol's family when Judge Baxter called a mistrial.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I did not want to turn around. I did not
want to look in their faces. How dare they let
him go out on the street and they did. I
know what I felt and I know what I thought,
and it had to have been just a fraction of
their emotions.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Judge Baxter ordered a retrial for Rabbi Newlander. This time,
the trial would head about an hour north of cherry
Hill to Freehold, New Jersey. Freehold is where Bruce Springsteen
grew up and even sang about it in his nineteen
eighty five song My Hometown. The reason Judge Baxter moved
the trial was to find an impartial jury.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It was difficult finding a jury because this case had
been so well publicized.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Mcgita was among the dozens of journalists who packed the
tiny courtroom their reporter.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
There were cameras. It was a madhouse. It was a frenzy.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Just like the first trial, The Rabbi's retrial was aired
from start to finish on Court TV. This allowed people
from all over the country to play armchair duror and
debate the guilt or innocence of Rabbi Fred Newlander. But
back in Cherry Hill, most had already made up their minds.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
A majority of the residents of Cherry Hill, of South Jersey, Jory,
the Congregants from Macorse alone believed that Fred Newlander had
a hand somehow in killing Carol.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
In the first trial, jurors heard from Rabbi Newlander's mistress
and four witnesses who said the Rabbi wanted his wife dead.
Three of the twelve jurors didn't believe the state proved
its case beyond a reasonable doubt, which resulted in a hungery.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I could not believe that so much evidence against the
Rabbi was eliminated, discard disgraced by the jury.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
In late two thousand and two, most of the players
from the first trial returned for the retrial, including the prosecutor,
James Lynch.
Speaker 6 (04:08):
You're going to hear that Fred Newlander, the Rabbi was
a man of God who acted in a thoroughly ungodly fashion.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
A year had passed between trials, and Rabbi Fred Newlander
appeared much thinner and his gray hair shorter. He also
had a new lawyer named Michael Riley.
Speaker 7 (04:29):
Let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen. There is
no evidence of mister Newlander's involvement in this case unless
you listen to the words from the mouth of Len General.
There is nothing. There's nothing physical, there's no business wreckers,
there's no bank records, there is nothing except the mouth
of Len Gennal.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Just like in the first trial, the defense said Len
Jenoff could not be trusted, and frankly, from everything we've
learned so far, Len was not credible or trustworthy.
Speaker 7 (04:56):
Glen Jenoff's life is nothing but he even, in an
effort to support this belief that he is a CIA agent,
had a picture of Ronald Reagan ostensibly autographed dar Lenny
from Ronnie.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Many said the handwriting on that photo looked more like
len Jenoff's than Ronald Reagan's.
Speaker 7 (05:18):
There's nothing real about this man.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
He's a liar.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
The defense argued it was len Jenoff who came up
with the plan to rob and murder Carol Newlander.
Speaker 7 (05:27):
Len Jenoff became aware that she would take large sums
of money home from her cake company. Glen Jenoff went
to the new Lander house that night to kill her
and steal her money.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
The defense also suggested the rabbi's ex mistress, Elaine Sencini,
had franked him.
Speaker 7 (05:45):
Does she have a reason to be angry at this
person who betrayed her too?
Speaker 6 (05:51):
He was seeing other women.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
He was nine cheating on his wife.
Speaker 7 (05:53):
He was cheating on his girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Just like the first trial. Jurors her testimony from Elaine Cencini,
Peppy Levin, len Jenof, and Paul Michael Daniels. Their testimony
was nearly identical to the first trial, except for one witness,
the rabbi's son, Matthew. By then, Matthew was a doctor,
and the prosecutor referred to him by his title doctor Newlander.
(06:17):
Back on the night of his mother's murder, Matthew was
working as an emt. In fact, he was one of
the first responders to his mother's murder at their home.
I bring that up because of how Matthew's testimony began.
Listened closely to his testimony as he describes arriving at
his house.
Speaker 8 (06:35):
Here are two large guys, and they physically grabbed me
and brought me back down the driveway to where I
finally saw for for it.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Did you catch that? It was so subtle that you
may have missed it. But doctor Matthew Newlander referred to
his father as Fred. That testimony caused Fred Newlander to
immediately whisper into his lawyer's ear and ask, why is
he calling me Fred? But calling his father Fred was
(07:04):
just the beginning.
Speaker 8 (07:06):
When I first saw him, he looked kind of the
way he looks right now, sort of blank and unemotional.
He said nothing to me. He wasn't breathing heavily, wasn't
crying or showing any outward sign of grief or remorse
at all. He didn't have a drop of blood on
(07:28):
his clothing.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Matthew didn't hold back about his father's lack of emotion
or perceived lack of emotion over his mother's murder.
Speaker 8 (07:36):
Never, at any time did he show any signs outwardly
of grief remorse.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
And never, in all the times.
Speaker 8 (07:45):
That I've seen him in the year since, as he
ever cried, never had a pleasant memory of her, or
seemed to grieve or worn for her in any way.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
What you're hearing is the one huge difference between the
first and second trial. Matthew Newlander was no longer protecting
his father.
Speaker 8 (08:03):
I asked him, where's mom? What happened? Is she okay?
Is someone taking care of her? His answers were really
just one repeated over and over again. Everything's going to
be okay, Everything's going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Matthew said he and his dad had had many conversations
about the night of his mother's murder, so.
Speaker 8 (08:28):
He was repulsed by what he saw. Two repulsed to
go in to see if she was okay. I found
my wife for a child on the floor right. I
would want to go try to help and you know,
if he couldn't help, fine, but at least you're there.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
A couple of the jurors wiped away tears as Matthew
struggled to choke back his own. Ironically, it was while
talking about his dad's lack of emotion.
Speaker 8 (09:01):
I would have given my right arm for five minutes
just to sit there with her and hold her hand
and tell her that I was there.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Matthew's heartbreaking testimony stunned the defense, but would it be
enough to overshadow the juror's doubts about len Jenoff. If
there was one major difference between the first trial and
the retrial of Rabbi Fred Newlander, it was the testimony
(09:30):
of his son, Matthew. While on the witness stand, Matthew
Newlander only referred to his father by his first name, Fred.
It was something even the rabbi's defense lawyer did not ignore,
so he calls.
Speaker 7 (09:42):
Father bade to call him father, no, to call him Fred.
Right from the beginning, Fred does fread.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
That the anger of that young man in the sadness
was all.
Speaker 6 (09:51):
Of a whelming.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Interestingly enough, the defense did not put the rabbi back
on the witness stand. Instead, they focused on len Jenoff's
long history of lying, and urged the jurors not to
let emotion cloud their judgment.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Ladies and gentlemen, emotion, it's not evidence.
Speaker 6 (10:08):
Passion is not true.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Prosecutor James Lynch had the final word.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Mister Leonard Jennoff.
Speaker 6 (10:17):
Is not being held up to you as a model citizen.
He is a man who took money to kill someone.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
The case went to the seven men and five women
of the jury on Friday, November fifteenth, two thousand and two.
The following Wednesday, Judge Baxter received a note from the
jury's fore women.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
I understand from your note that you have reached a verdict. Yes,
we have.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
After twenty seven hours of deliberations, the jury's for women
stood before Judge Baxter. When she spoke, her voice quivered,
and there was something else. She tears in her eyes.
Before anyone could guess the meaning of those tears, the
verdict echoed through the courtroom.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Guilty.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Nearly eight years after the murder of Carol Newlander, her husband,
Rabbi Fred Neulander, was found guilty of capital murder. In
the back of the courtroom, Carol's siblings all locked hands,
put their heads down and started to cry. Meanwhile, the
Rabbi stood there in a daze. As Judge Baxter addressed
(11:31):
the jury.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, having found the defendant,
Fred Newlander, guilty of murder, you now have, as you know,
the added responsibility of determining what penalty for that crime
is to be imposed upon him.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
A guilty verdict in a capital murder trial triggers what's
known as the penalty phase. This meant these twelve jurors,
one who already had tears in her eyes, had the
a I did responsibility of deciding the Rabbi's fate, and
at the time, New Jersey still had the death penalty.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
Under the law enacted by our legislature, the penalty may
be either death or a term of years between thirty
years and life imprisonment, of which thirty years must be
served before the defendant is eligible for parole.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Much like the trial itself, the prosecutors and the defense
both presented their arguments for what they considered just punishment,
and that included testimony from the Rabbi.
Speaker 9 (12:38):
I am here to a for aplea for my life.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Fred Newlander was sixty one years old at the time
and delivered what was arguably the most important sermon of
his life.
Speaker 9 (12:48):
If I look at the days of the years of
my life before the first of November of nineteen ninety four,
they were filled with great blessings. First and foremost, I
had my wife, Carol. She was a remarkable woman, and
(13:16):
I miss her, and I loved her, and I love her.
Now there are those who I'm sure behind their hands
with snicker, I have acknowledged for the longest time my
behavior that was reprehensible, and my behavior that was disgraceful.
(13:43):
And yet.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
You must believe I.
Speaker 9 (13:46):
Loved her and love her. Starting today, there is another
sense of the days of the years of my life
that will unfold. I do not know where I will be,
quite obviously don't know now, But wherever I will be,
(14:12):
there will be men who cannot read.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
The Rabbi explained that in Hebrew, the word rabbi means teacher.
Speaker 9 (14:21):
I'm a good teacher, I was a good teacher. I
can be a good teacher. And I want to help
that young man that will enhance the days of the
years of my life. By helping the days of the
years of that young man's life. That's all I want
is that opportunity to teach. I beseech you, I importune you,
(14:46):
I beg of you for that privilege, and I promise,
I promise that I will do whatever a teacher should
do to enrich the lives of people that come in
contact with that teacher.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
The rabbi smiled and nodded to the jury before slowly
walking back to the defense table. He sat down, removed
his glasses, and looked exhausted. Two full days past before
the jury returned. That's when the four women handed a
note to Judge Baxter.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
After due deliberation, the jury cannot unanimously agree upon punishment.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
This shifted the responsibility back to Judge Baxter, who now
had to impose a sentence. At another hearing in early
two thousand and three, witnesses from both sides stated their
case for punishment, including the rabbi's sister in law.
Speaker 10 (15:45):
He is truly a monster beyond human comprehension, and he
should never ever be free again.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Carol's brother also didn't mince words.
Speaker 11 (15:56):
You are the lowest form of humanity. You dishonored Carol, yourself,
your children, this court, your congregation.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
The rabbitt and.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Judaism absent from the hearing were the rabbi's son Matthew
and daughter Rebecca. Instead, they sent letters to the court.
Rebecca wrote, I'm not sure that he will ever fully
comprehend what his ego, maniacal and selfish acts did to
my family and me. Matthew went a step further and
(16:27):
called his father a sociopath and a worthless, soulless, pathetic
shell of a man. Throughout both of these trials, the
third Newlander child, Benjamin, steered clear of the courtroom. Until now,
Benjamin had refrained from commenting and testifying about his mother's murder,
(16:49):
but that day all eyes were on him as he
walked into the courtroom and broke his silence about his father.
Speaker 11 (16:55):
Things like soccer games, swim meets, school events at as
many as he could. I remember seeing him there, and
you know, those were the good times. I knew that
when I needed somebody to be there for me for
any particular difficulty that I was having, he and I
(17:18):
could relate on a very special level. And I knew
that as busy as he was, he would always be
able to find time to just guide me through whatever
issues that I was having. That's what he did for
many people was to guide them, and I knew that
I could always count on him to be around for that.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Benjamin Newlander was now returning the favor for his dad.
Speaker 11 (17:41):
I'm a teacher, and one of the biggest reasons that
I'm a teacher is because of my father. So I
think that speaks for just his influence on me. I
think he led me down an amazing path, and I
think that there are other people that he can do
(18:01):
that for. And just give him the chance to show
that he can still do that, because I know that
you can.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Ultimately, Fred Newlander's fate was in Judge Baxter's hands, and
after careful consideration, she spared him the death penalty, instead
issuing the maximum sentence short of death, thirty years to life.
Here's his former lawyer, death sucker.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
He's in a prison where almost everybody in the prison
is serving tremendously long sentences, their life sentences. The last
time I saw him, he still professes his innocence, says
he had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Rabbi Fred Newlander was incarcerated in a maximum security prison
in New Jersey. It's one of the country's oldest facilities.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
I feel horribly for the family. I mean, I don't
think he's had any contact with his children. I spent
a lot of time with each of his children preparing
for this trial, and they were all nice kids, they
really were. It's a horrible tragedy for them. I think
(19:10):
Matthew was legitimately horrified by his father. First, your mother's murdered,
and then your father's convicted of the murdered. Can't get
much worse.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
More than eight years and two trials later, Rabbi Fred
Newlander was convicted of hiring a hitman to kill his
wife Carol. In two thousand and three, Rabbi Newlander agreed
to an interview with Barbara Walters, and once again the
Rabbi declared his innocence.
Speaker 10 (19:45):
If you were innocent, why would God do this to you?
Speaker 9 (19:50):
I don't think God is a great puppeteer. I think
what happened to me was driven by human beings.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Rabbi Newlander said law enforcement was under an enormous amount
of pressure to solve the murder and used his infidelity
to label him a murderer.
Speaker 10 (20:07):
Am By, as God is your witness, did you have
anything to do with your wife's murder?
Speaker 9 (20:15):
No?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
He said that of all the victims, he cried the
most for his children. He added that he was devastated
that two of them wrote him off.
Speaker 10 (20:25):
Aren't you tormented? If you're sitting here an innocent man,
you have.
Speaker 9 (20:30):
No idea how much rage I.
Speaker 10 (20:32):
Have shot it.
Speaker 9 (20:32):
You know, one of the things that I have been
trained to do is hold on to my emotions.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
The rabbi explained that there's no book that says this
is how a guilty person acts, and this is how
an innocent person acts.
Speaker 9 (20:46):
I can't express remorse for a murder that I did
not commit.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Afterwards, Barbara Walters called their interview eerie because the rabbi,
who claimed to be enraged, laid no emotion throughout their interview.
As for Len Jenoff and Paul Michael Daniels, the two
who actually carried out the murder of Carol Newlander, both
pled guilty and were sentenced to twenty three years in prison.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I've dealt in one way or another with the new
Lander case since nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Arthur mcgida wrote the book The Rabbi and the hit Man,
and there was one final and bizarre twist in this case.
In May two thousand and eight, Len Jennof filed emotion
challenging his sentence. In that motion, he claimed ineffective counsel
and stated that his lawyer slept through most of his
(21:42):
court proceedings. He also alleged he had been promised significantly
less time than twenty three years.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Len Jenoff was such a dubious and questionable character, and
in the best of all worlds, nobody should believe anything
he ever said.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
In two thousand and nine, len Jenov said he had
given a lot of thought to what happened and wanted
to set the record straight. In assigned affidavit, len wrote,
Fred Neulander never asked me to kill his wife, and
to the best of my knowledge, he never had any
idea of any attempt on his wife's life. In other words,
(22:23):
len Jenoff recanted and said the incident at the Newlanders
was a robbery gone bad and not a murder for hire.
He said he made up the story that implicated the
rabbi because he was promised leniency if he cooperated with
the prosecutor's office.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
How could Jenov be believed? Now he's wild over and
over again, he admits, but he claims he's telling the truth.
Just this one time.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Well, it turns out len Jenov wasn't done lying. Three
years after retracting his confession, Jenoff flip flopped yet again.
In twenty twelve, Len told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he
regretted forcanting his statement. He said, I testified at two
trials that Fred Newlander did hire me, in fact, to
(23:12):
kill his wife and make it look like a robbery,
and that is the truth. Len called his actions immoral
and again reverted to his initial testimony at the trials.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Lender Jenoff, who was not a man of his word,
had never been a man of his word, and absolutely
nothing coming out of Jenoff's mouth could be believed.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
In twenty fourteen, both Len Jenoff and Paul Michael o'daniels
walked out of prison free men. They both had served
more than fourteen years before being released from prison. Throughout
the years, Rabbi Fred Newlander has appealed his conviction and
petitioned for a new trial each time he was denied.
In a twenty twelve interview with NBC ten in Philadelphia,
(23:59):
the rabbi mid his behavior in his marriage was appalling.
He called himself an embarrassment and said he should have
behaved better, but maintained he did not kill his wife.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I would hope that there was some deep core of
Fred Newlander that was speaking to him, nagging at him
and telling him he was a shame and a shambles
of a human being. We'll never know what happened.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
He's right, we will never know the full story about
why Carol Newlander was murdered because in April twenty twenty four,
the rabbi took those answers to his grave.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Fred Newlander, a former Cherry Hill rabbi who was convicted
in the murder for hire of his wife, has died
in prison at the age of eighty two.
Speaker 7 (24:53):
Correctional officers found Fred Newlander unresponsive on Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
After performing CPR and using an ad a new Land
was pronounced oad of the hospital. No cause of death
was released to the public, and according to one of
the rabbi's former lawyers, up until the time of his death,
the rabbi had been counseling other inmates on religion. Next
time on American homicide. When a popular teenage artist goes missing,
(25:22):
her community jumps into action, but when police discovered a
secret box full of cash, questions are raised around if
police were looking for a crime scene or the trail
of a young woman who planned her own disappearance. I'm
Sloan Glass. We head to Neptune City, New Jersey for
the case of Sarah Stern. That's next time on American Homicide.
(25:47):
You can contact the American Homicide team by emailing us
at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. That's American
Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. American Homicide is hosted
and written by me Sloan Glass and is a production
of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in
(26:08):
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Nancy Glass and Todd Gans. The series is also written
and produced by Todd Gans, with additional writing by Ben
Fetterman and Andrea Gunny. Our associate producer is Kristin Melcurie.
Our Ihearty is Ali Perry and Jessica Crimechak. Audio editing
(26:30):
and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, Dave Seya, and Britt Robashow.
Additional editing support from Nico Ruka, Tanner Robbins, and Patrick Walsh.
American Homicide's theme song was composed by Oliver Baines of
Neiser Music Library provided by my Music. Follow American Homicide
(26:50):
on Apple Podcasts, and please rate and review American Homicide.
Your five star review goes a long way towards helping
others find this show. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit
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