Special Report: Sexual Molestation

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Yisroel Shapiro Arrested

Yisroel Shapiro has been arrested and charged with two counts of sexual offense in the third degree, sexual offense in the fourth degree and battery.

An arrest warrant was carried out by Baltimore City Police Department detectives at the request of the City State’s Attorney’s office.

“Mr. Shapiro has been arrested and charged,” said Tammy Griffin-Lawman of the City’s State’s Attorney’s office.

Mr. Shapiro, the son of the late Rabbi Ephraim Shapiro, himself the center of a Jewish Times investigation of alleged sexual molestation, is a resident of Olympia Avenue in Baltimore City.

An original complaint was filed with the City State’s Attorney’s office alleging Mr. Shapiro, currently an employee of a local kosher butcher shop, of past molestations. In the Baltimore City Police Department complaint, one of the alleged victims, stated: “Yisroel Shapiro would shuckle or rock back and forth holding me against himself and leaning (chanting Torah) out loud while he was feeling me up and touching me.”

At another point, the victim reported, “I could feel his erection under me. I would try to get off of his lap, but he’d hold me very tightly. I must have been doing something wrong. I thought it was my fault. It was very confusing for me as a child. I just wanted to learn.”
“I’m ecstatic,” said one of his victims, who asked to remain anonymous at this time. “Last night ( Tuesday) I had to pick out his photo in a photo line up. They wrote up the warrant and went and picked him up.”

Mr. Shapiro will face a bail review, according to Ms. Griffin-Lawman, and the case will then make its way through district or circuit court.

Mr. Shapiro had hinted to one of his victims that he had been abused as a “young child” himself, and that he had received therapy.

In terms of his alleged crimes, Mr. Shapiro said to the victim, “I can tell you I was not fully aware that I was doing something wrong.”

For more stories on the Jewish Times series of sexual molestation click here.

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