A Brooklyn yeshiva leader has been arrested and accused of sexually abusing at least three teenage boys. Yoel Malik, 33, was a former teacher and part owner of the now-closed Borough Park school (Ohr Hameir) the victims attended. He allegedly had sex with a 16-year-old in a motel, attempted to have sex with another teen in a motel, and allegedly rubbed a third teen's groin through his pants in a car.
Police have surveillance video from one Washington Avenue motel where Malik allegedly brought a boy for sex on January 18. Law enforcement sources told NBC that he rented the room for at least seven hours. All the attacks occurred between May 2012 and this month. Sources told NBC that "Malik admitted to detectives that he had encounters with the boys, but denied having sex with them or giving them alcohol and cigarettes. He also allegedly told detectives the victims made sexual advances toward him, but he refused."
Those sources also said that Malik made statements to detectives indicating he was a victim of sexual abuse when he was 12. He has been charged with 12 counts of sexual abuse, four counts of criminal sexual act, 11 counts of endangering the welfare of a child and one count of forcible touching. Malik's wife, Rachel, told the News: “This is vicious gossip...He’s a good man. I don’t know what to say. I hope it’s not true.”
Before it shuttered, Ohr Hameir was known as a school for troubled Hasidic teens who have been kicked out of mainstream religious schools. Another former teacher at Ohr Hameir, Moshe Pinter, was arrested and charged with a trying to molest a 13-year old boy in 2007. Pinter started working there AFTER he had been arrested, chaperoning Hasidic teens on weekend getaways while parents had no idea of his criminal past.
