Five Political Scandals To (Sorta) Shake Brooklyn
Charles Hynes Protects ultra-Orthodox Pedophiles – 2012
It’s hard to choose just one abhorrent scandal to discuss when it comes to Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes (we have a full list here, if you’re so inclined), but one of his most high profile missteps has been his seeming indifference to widespread and increasingly public sexual abuse of children in Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox community. You see, this is a big, big voting bloc for Hynes.
This past May, the embattled D.A. drew a huge amount of public criticism amidst allegations that he has allowed a double standard for enforcement of sexual abuse policies among the ultra-Orthodox, keeping names of abusers secret from the public (a departure from general policy), and allowing rules set within the group requiring incidents to be reported to rabbis first and police second, if at all.
Much like Lopez, Hynes has been criticized by more or less everyone who’s anyone politically, including Bloomberg, who told the New York Times that he “completely disagrees” with Hynes on the issue.
Hynes has yet to reverse course on the matter, so this scandal is actually still in play, and will be until his re-election race in 2013. It could be a close one, seeing as an actual opponent recently entered the picture.