Shaul Spitzer, 18, of New Square plead guilty to first degree assault after a deal was reached at the Rockland County Court House. / Ricky Flores/The Journal News
NEW CITY — An 18-year-old follower of the New Square grand rebbe pleaded guilty Tuesday to setting a dissident community member on fire during an arson attack that rocked the Hasidic community.
Shaul Spitzer, who lived with Grand Rabbi David Twersky and did butler-type work for him, will face a maximum state prison sentence of 10 years for first-degree assault when sentenced April 17 by state Supreme Court Justice William A. Kelly.
Kelly told Spitzer five years would be the minimum prison term he would consider on the charge, which carries a maximum of 25 years.
The plea was part of an overall agreement that included the settlement of a civil lawsuit brought by the victim, Aron Rottenberg. He will receive a monetary award – believed to be in the $2 million range — from supporters of Spitzer and Twersky.
Tuesday's court session in New City originally was scheduled for jury selection to try Spitzer on charges of first-degree assault, second-degree attempted murder and second-degree attempted arson, all felonies. Negotiations among the judge, prosecutors and defense lawyers led Spitzer to withdraw his plea of not guilty.
Spitzer stood flanked by his three lawyers while pleading guilty, ending weeks of negotiations that included support for the sentence from Rottenberg. Spitzer admitted that on May 22 he tossed an incendiary device — made of gasoline-soaked T-shirts with twine as a fuse — onto the back porch of Rottenberg's house because Rottenberg broke the grand rebbe's rabbi's rules and refused to pray in the community's lone synagogue.
The young man admitted that when Rottenberg confronted him at 4:15 a.m and they wrestled, Spitzer admitted he set off a second gasoline-soaked device, setting Rottenberg and himself on fire.
Rottenberg suffered third-degree burns across 50 percent of his body, and he needed months of skin grafts and hospitalization. Spitzer was hospitalized for burns to his hands and arms.
''He jumped me and grabbed me and I lit the torch,'' Spitzer said after when prosecutor Stephen Moore asked him if he saw Rottenberg on the lawn that morning
For months before prior to the attack, Rottenberg and others had been targets of protests outside their homes and vandalism. Rottenberg angered the grand rebbe and community leaders by leading a contingent of residents who refused to pray at the grand rebbe's Truman Avenue synagogue.
Instead, they prayed at the Friedwald Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing on New Hempstead Road, partially in protest to the overcrowded synagogue and the rabbi's edicts. A week before the attack, Rottenberg said his family had received threatening telephone calls.
Rottenberg's son-in-law Moshe Elbaum said Tuesday that Rottenberg's main concern is his family. The civil settlement came into play, Elbaum said, but so did assurances from the community's leaders that they will respect his religious rights to pray wherever he wants, allow him to sell his Truman Avenue house and permit him to send his children to any school without interference.
The rabbinical court will issue an edict to leave the Rottenberg family be and the declaration will be posted at the synagogue, Elbaum said. ''We have to move on with our lives,'' Elbaum said. ''He's going to prison and he's going to pay for what he did.''
District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said Rottenberg's personal interests convinced him to support a plea to first-degree assault and a 10-year sentence for Spitzer and a plea to first-degree assault. The charge carries the same prison time as attempted murder.
''I would say that based on the facts of the case and the strong feelings the victim expressed to Judge Kelly that some leniency should be shown toward the defendant, this proposed disposition serves the ends of justice,'' Zugibe said.
Prosecutor Stephen Moore told Kelly that the District Attorney's Office supported the plea agreement with a 10-year sentence for Spitzer.
Spitzer's lawyers are hoping for a shorter sentence. He was represented by former Rockland District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz, former Rockland prosecutor Deborah Wolikow Loewenberg and Paul Shechtman of New York City
A conviction at trial – including testimony from Rottenberg and the fact Spitzer was caught burned – would have likely bought Spitzer far more than 10 years from Kelly.
Loewenberg acknowledged the prosecution had a strong evidentiary case against Spitzer and ''there was a significant risk of facing 25 years'' if he was convicted at trial.
''This way, he has the peace of mind of knowing the sentence won't be more than 10 years,'' she said.
''We're hoping he'll get five years,'' Gribetz said. ''We want to show the judge this is a young boy who is not a criminal and will never, ever be part of the criminal justice system again. This is a human tragedy for the Rottenberg family and the Spitzer family.''
Rottenberg claimed in his lawsuit that Spitzer acted at the direction of Twersky. The rabbi denied involvement through his community relations people and lawyers and later condemned the violence.
''We have no admissible evidence that points the finger at anyone but one single individual,'' Zugibe said.
About a dozen residents from New Square and family members attended the court hearing. They declined to comment. After the court session, residents on the streets of New Square declined to comment.
A statement released Tuesday evening by the Rottenbergs on Tuesday evening said the family was ''looking forward to starting a new chapter in our lives and to beginning the process of putting the pain behind us
