Trial opens in N.J. for rabbi accused of murdering wife

CAMDEN, N.J. -- It's been almost seven years since the former head of one of the largest Reform congregations in southern New Jersey walked into his living room and saw his wife of 29 years lying face down in a pool of blood, the victim of a brutal beating with a lead pipe.

Since that time, Rabbi Fred Neulander quickly sank from a revered member of the Jewish community into an inmate confined to a small jail cell, awaiting the verdict of a jury that could sentence him to death.

Although the long-awaited murder trial only began Monday, much of the events leading up to the Nov. 1, 1994 murder of Carol Neulander are already known.

Testimony is expected to dwell around infidelity and disreputable characters allegedly hired to be hit men.

The rabbi, now 60, resigned his pulpit at M'Kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, N.J., in 1995 after the world learned of his two-year affair with a famous radio personality who had come to him for counseling.

Elaine Soncini, whom Neulander helped convert to Judaism, has told police that the two met often and wrote love poems to each other. She is not the only woman Neulander is said to have had affairs with after counseling.

In 1996, Neulander was suspended from the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Reform movement's rabbinic association.

The investigation continued and two years later, he was arrested on charges of being an accomplice to murder and conspiring to commit murder. He was freed on bail.

Then in May 2000, two men came forward and confessed to the murder, alleging that Neulander hired them to kill his wife.

In light of the confessions, a Camden County grand jury reindicted Neulander on charges of capital murder, felony murder and conspiracy, and the judge revoked his bail.

Besides lies and love, the trial also is expected to feature testimony from at least two of the rabbi's adult children -- Matthew, an emergency medical technician, and Rebecca, who was on the phone with her mother shortly before her death. Additionally, employees of the Classic Cake Company, which Carol Neulander had formerly owned and still worked for at the time of her murder, are on the witness list to be called.

The trial has enough intrigue to bring in Court TV cameras, which are expected to roll through much of the trial and carry it across the United States.

Through it all, Neulander has maintained his innocence. No murder weapon has been found. No fingerprints were obtained. And almost all the witnesses against the rabbi come with enough baggage to undermine their credibility.

The two confessed hit men, Leonard Jenoff and Paul Michael Daniels, have pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and await sentencing following this trial.

Jenoff, a former congregant of Neulander who says the rabbi offered him $30,000 for the killing, once told people he worked for the CIA and now admits that he lied to offset his failures and low self-esteem.

He had a "severe, severe alcohol problem," according to James Lynch, the attorney prosecuting the case for the state.

Daniels leads "a difficult life," including drug abuse, Lynch said Monday during his opening statements in the trial.

Myron "Pep" Levin, Neulander's racquetball partner who claims the rabbi told him he wished his wife were gone, has served prison time for fraud. And Soncini is now married to the Cherry Hill police officer assigned to her immediately following the murder.

The trial, expected to last four weeks, will feature testimony from these people as well as the rabbi himself.

Throughout painful accusations in Lynch's opening statements, Neulander showed little if any emotion.