Case of Margie Shabat - Chicago, IL

I've heard some mumblings about the following case. What I'm hearing is that it's the same people in Chicago that have been protecting Yosef Meystel that have been silencing the victims in this case. If anyone has any information please post it.

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My Inaugural Letter
http://web.archive.org/web/20011022020427/projecttruth.org/main.html

Welcome! On February 27, 2001, I sent (with my Dad's help and moral support) the following letter - by direct, First Class mail - to the thousands of members of the Chicago Jewish Community listed in the Chicago Acheinu Directory, thereby inaugurating Project Truth .So there will be no misunderstanding, please read my posted "Statement of Goals".


February, 2001

Dear Chicago Jewish Community Member,

LET ME TELL YOU WHAT THE PEDOPHILES DID TO ME
It’s important to a childhood sexual abuse victim to be heard, even if you’ll never understand how much it hurts. Thank you for reading this letter, and taking it to heart, mind, and action .

I’m trying to be polite, but the truth is, the whole community should be ashamed. The molesters were leaders, and still are. And now your rabbinic and lay leaders are protecting the molesters, and continuing to hurt the victims.

DANNY AND MARGIE SHABAT: PERVERTED SEXUAL ABUSE
I’m over twenty now, but it seems like yesterday that I was a sixteen-year-old, Israeli student at Telshe Yeshiva High School in Chicago. That’s when I fell into the clutches of Margie and Danny Shabat. Margie sexually molested me dozens and dozens of times. I’m sure Danny knew about it the whole time. He had to. When you hear and see the evidence on the website, you will be too.

A month after I came to Telshe to get a solid education, I went home to Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) for a week to mourn “shiva” for my five-year-old brother who was hit by a car on Simchas Torah. I came back to Chicago and nobody but Margie knew how I felt. I was re-experiencing the death of my twin-sister when we were three-years-old. Margie made me believe that she was the embodiment of my lost sister. Margie had me call her “Ima”; secretly . At the time, I loved Margie more than anything else in the world - she bought me all kinds of gifts (and promised me the world) and we went on all kinds of adventures together; secretly (except for Danny - he knew about the gifts and excursions).

Then Margie and Danny tricked my parents into authorizing Danny and Margie to be my overseas “extended-parents”, and I moved out of the yeshiva dorm into their house at (Address Removed), Peterson Park, Chicago 60659. Almost every night (for some reason, on Shabbos she didn’t do it to me) Margie would leave her and Danny’s bedroom and come down to my basement bedroom at about 1:00a.m. and spend about four naked hours in bed with me. This happened more than fifty times.

Now when we went on “trips” together, Margie would make me do sexual things to her in the woods and on the beach - even on the plane!

I can’t tell you in this short letter all the things Margie taught and trained me to do to her - four hours every night - but it took a lot of physical stamina. I had become her sex-slave. But soon the whole truth will be told, so other children won’t fall prey to people like the Shabats. My Dad and I, are opening Project Truth, and our website ProjectTruth.org is already up and running (although it needs further development).

I’m sure that a lot of other boys who spent time at the Shabat House (it is a very popular spot) were also victims, but so far, no one wants to admit it. Their denials are very suspicious. With community support, they’ll come forward. Maybe you’ll discover the other pedophiles in your community that are endangering the children. Are you going to continue to pretend they don’t exist? It’s your kids ?! They belong to the Jewish nation. You don’t have the right to be sympathetic to molesters.

MARGIE AND HASHEM: One of the weird things is how Margie talked to me about Hashem. She would always say that “Hashem likes what we’re doing, even though no human could understand”. She also said a lot of other things. She was very manipulative.

MY DAD: One thing she really convinced me of, was that my father was my biggest enemy. Eventually I sort of became ( _______ ) Shabat, instead of ( _______ ) Thomas - (that’s my real name). This really disappointed my Dad. I didn’t speak to him for three years. When I was nineteen, I came back to Israel to fight for my country, and we got back together. That’s when I told my Dad about the molesters (there’s also a Jerusalem perpetrator on the loose; see the web-site), and we started doing something about all this.

Dad has really had his hands full here in Chicago, trying to get the Shabats into the Chicago Rabbinical Council Beit Din. Since they wouldn’t come, the C.R.C. Beit Din gave him permission to sue in Circuit Court. He’s doing the whole thing pro se (do-it-yourself litigation). What makes it so hard for my Dad is that nobody appreciates (people are actually upset at) his insistence on dealing forthrightly with my molesters - which is the only way to deal with molesters. Even worse, the leaders of Chicago have been actually helping the pedophiles, and hurting Dad.

MY SILENCE : This brings us to why I’m writing to you even though Danny Shabat recently started to pay me yearly money in return for my silence. Let me explain why several weeks ago I dared my Dad that he should go ahead and report to the community. And when I saw Dad actually writing his report, I said, “Move aside Dad, I’m takin’ over”.

About a year ago, while my Dad was still wasting his time trying to corral the Shabats into Beit Din (regarding Dad’s claim), my attorney was pursuing my claim in civil court (at this point, I don’t have much faith in Rabbis or Beit Din). It was time for me to start taking depositions and talking in depth about all the molestations - and I was scared. I didn’t want to relive the horrors. (You probably are wondering what “horrors” are there in a boy being coerced into so many naked sexual hours with a good-looking blond. Well, I also didn’t feel sick at first. For now, let it suffice to say that there is huge difference between “sex” and “sex-slaving”. Cancer also doesn’t hurt at the beginning. It just slowly but surely eats you up. Slow burn.)

I also had a desperate need to lessen my financial pressures - I support myself, and go to college, and it’s not easy. The idea of “cashing in” was very enticing. But I really wanted the Shabats to get their “day of reckoning” and be exposed. Seeing Dad’s determination, I knew that “day” would come in any case. I asked Dad if he minded me “bowing out”. Dad understood. I told my attorney to “get me out for whatever you can get - and make sure that whatever confidentiality agreement I have to sign, allows me to testify if subpoenaed in my Dad’s trial”. I refused to sign the Shabats’ first draft, that had me disparaging my father. They deleted that paragraph, and I signed. Problem: I agreed to silence - the manipulators took a lot more. As follows:

PEDOPHILES AND PIGS: It was a good deal for the pedophiles. For a little bit of money, the Shabats neutralized the strongest legal threat. But as it turns out, pedophiles are also pigs. They now distort, exaggerate, and convert my silence, into an acknowledgment that “molester issues” are non-existent; into an acknowledgment that the Shabats have honorably made amends with their exploited victim. This is absolutely false! And I simply agreed to “sit on the sidelines as they engage my Dad in court”.

They are using ME, to ridicule and harass my Dad - which is against the spirit of the contract. The Shabats are saying, “The son has been made honorably whole, but his cruel and crazy father insists on continuing the Civil War.”

Using ME as their hostage and their cover, the pedophile Shabats have mobilized the very people you would expect to be helping Dad, into harassing him. These powerful people are protecting and honoring the pedophile Shabats - as follows.

RABBI SHMUEL FUERST: Even the Rabbis protect my molesters and work against my Dad! Rabbi Shmuel Fuerst - who is the head of Agudath Israel of Illinois - told Dad that this was not a matter that warranted investigation - “it allegedly happened four years ago, and there’s no evidence that it happened to anybody else!” This is the same attitude that was used by the NCSY Board of directors wthey tried to hide a former rabbi/director - Baruch Lanner - that was sexually abusing NCSY children.

But get this! For a year now, Rabbi Fuerst has been harassing my Dad, insisting that the C.R.C. didn’t have the right to permit a civil lawsuit. A couple of months ago, Rabbi Fuerst put together a kangaroo Beit Din, and Excommunicated my Dad for suing the Shabats! See the details of that on the website.

Riddle : What is Rabbi Fuerst’s motive for acting so? Hearsay Answer : Remember the Orthodox Day School teacher that molested his students? Rumor has it, that Rabbi Fuerst knew of his propensity for sexual abuse and nevertheless helped get him his Day School teaching job - withholding information about his past. Rumor further has it that Danny Shabat is blackmailing Rabbi Fuerst with leaking this to the authorities, if Rabbi Fuerst doesn’t get Danny and Margie off the hook.

RABBI MOSHE FRANCIS : Rabbi Francis, the head of the Chicago Community Kollel, has been helping the Shabats with their legal-wiggling-out since the beginning. He filed an affidavit on behalf of the Shabats in Circuit Court, and helped their attorney communicate with (or rather, evade) the C.R.C. Beit Din. Two months ago , for the Chicago Community Kollel annual fund-raising Banquet Dinner, Rabbi Francis appointed Margie the Molester to be one of the “Banquet Co-ordinators”, and put her in charge of “Ad Book Solicitation”; Rabbi Francis appointed Danny Shabat to be one of the “Chairmen” of the banquet dinner.

Originally, when My Dad heard that Rabbi Francis was contacting important people in Israel, to protest his lawsuit in civil-court against the Shabats, I was standing right there when Dad called Rabbi Francis to ask about his connection to this “Situation.” Rabbi Francis said that Danny Shabat had “told him what happened.” Rabbi Francis added that he was appalled that a “ben torah” like Aaron Thomas should pursue a civil claim. Dad asked Rabbi Francis if he was outraged when Danny Shabat told him what had transpired. Rabbi Francis admitted that he would not describe his reaction as outrage. Dad suggested to him that his lack of outrage was as if he thought that child sexual abuse was OK in torah law.

I had a question for Rabbi Francis, so Dad passed me the phone. “Rabbi Francis, is Danny Shabat a significant contributor to your institution?” Rabbi Francis acknowledged that he was. “Now I understand”, I said.

It all has to do with money. It’s because the Shabats give a lot of money to the Rabbis. This makes victims like me feel sick, and it’s why victims are scared to report the crimes.

PROJECT SHIELD AND THE HARTMANS: Oh yeh, let me tell you how Project Shield treated my Dad and our “Situation”. Last year Dad was in Chicago pursuing his lawsuit against the Shabats for the extensive molestations against me, that splintered our family. He was ignoring his Jerusalem construction business and was confronting what he also sees as a crime against me - and against Jewry at Large - and he needed help keeping bread on the Jerusalem table. The people who you might expect to help, felt it would be more Jewish to forget about what happened (to me). I think he was ready to give up.

Then suddenly, the Chicago Jewish community was abuzz. The philanthropists, Robbie and Debbie Hartman, (when I was “Naftali Shabat” - Danny, Margie, and I used to get together with them every Shabbos) and Debbie’s sister, Jo Bruck launched Project Shield with the published exposure of two child sexual abuse perpetrators.

The purpose of Project Shield was to rid the community of pedophilia, of which one of the founding sisters’ family had been a victim. The Hartmans proclaimed that we must get tough with PEDOPHILES and that Project Shield will be “a place for victims and their families to come”. They decried the situation where “the rabbis have failed ...perpetrators lead a double life...the perpetrator gets away with his crime and the victims pay even more...the rabbi (pedophile) is being protected to see that he stays out of jail and his story out of the newspapers...but says Hartman, first and foremost are the victims...”

Dad was excited. He thought his isolation was over. With Project Shield’s declaration of identification, Dad’s potential supporters would understand that Dad’s attitude is the true Jewish response. So Dad called the Hartmans, but they had left town leaving co-founder Jo Bruck in charge. He anonymously told Bruck the entire story leaving out names, and explained his goal - to achieve Project Shield’s identification with his approach to our “Situation”. Persistently, she insisted that Dad give her the names because, per force, these things were still going on, and Project Shield knew how to deal with the “Situation”.

Finally Dad said to Bruck that this would really put the Hartmans to the test, because the name is Danny and Margie Shabat - Robbie and Debbie Hartman’s best friends! Bruck agreed that it would be the test, but that she was positive her sister and brother-in-law would meet their responsibilities in Project Shield (which was seeking public funding, through Shalva). At Bruck’s encouragement, within an hour, Dad delivered fifty pages of documentation detailing the crimes. She read the entire story and was aghast and very sympathetic. “I’ll get in touch with Robbie and Debbie now. Please come back at 8:00 tonight” , she told Dad.

However, when Dad walked back into Bruck’s home that night, he found himself in a lion’s den. In just three-hours, the sympathetic Mrs. Bruck was now hostile. She sternly informed him that she had been in touch with the Hartmans, who have been briefed in this matter by the SHABATS. “They understand that your son has “settled” his matter with the Shabats. You are just the father,” she told him, “Project Shield isn’t designed to help the father. There’s the door. Maybe try Rabbi Fuerst. Get out.” Dad retreated very wounded. You see! Here again, my agreement to “stay out of the litigation” was portrayed as somehow exonerating the perpetrators.

PROJECT SHIELD, SHIELDS MOLESTERS : Project Shield is guilty of violating its own rules! They are now actively protecting child sexual abusers - IN MY NAME. By hiding the sex offenders from the public, they are allowing the sexual abuse to continue. This behavior helps the sex offender to find new victims. Perpetuation of the “secretiveness” of child sexual abuse only fosters further abuse.

(That same night, Danny Shabat - having been warned by their “friends” at Project Shield, the Hartmans - called my grandfather in Memphis. Zaidee interpreted Danny’s phone call to be a possible threat of physical violence against my Dad. Zaidee told Dad to be careful, and “don’t go anywhere by yourself!”)

BE WARNED : Originally when I insisted to Dad that The Shabats have to be exposed for the benefit of the “other children”; Dad would counter that the most effective medium to expose, is through formal “procedures” in a court of law. However, it’s taking too long (and anyway, financial pressures are jeopardizing those legal “procedures”), and I can no longer remain silent as the unguarded pedophiles rally corrupt community and rabbinic support against my Dad. So I’m taking over - I invite you to join me.

Excuse my shouting, but I have to warn this community: IT’S ONLY BECAUSE THERE ARE “MOLESTER PROTECTORS” LIKE RABBI FUERST, RABBI FRANCIS, AND ROBBIE HARTMAN - THAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE FOR THERE TO BE A SHABAT COUPLE TO MOLEST ME AND OTHER KIDS, SO THAT WE VICTIMS HAVE TO THEN SPEND THE REST OF OUR LIVES TRYING TO SHAKE A FILTHY (you’re not a victim - that’s why you think the expression is too harsh) MARGIE AND DANNY SHABAT OFF OUR BACKS.

Signed: ( ______ ) Thomas

Project Truth
Memphis, Tennessee
www.ProjectTruth.org
e-mail:

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To contact the molesters and their protectors :

Danny and Margie Shabat
Chicago, Illinois 60659
home-Removed
office-Removed

Robbie and Debbie Hartman
Chicago, Illinois 60659
home-Removed

Rabbi Shmuel Fuerst
6100 N. Drake Ave.
Chicago, Illinois 60659
773-539-4241
773-463-7738

Rabbi Moshe Francis
6604 N. Richmond St.
Chicago, Illinois 60645
773-262-7151