By John Springer Court TV  

FREEHOLD, N.J. — A former New Jersey rabbi now faces the death penalty after he was found guilty on all counts Wednesday of hiring a hit man to carry out the murder of his wife of 28 years.

Fred Neulander, 61, showed no emotion as the forewoman of the jury of seven men and five women pronounced the once-beloved religious leader guilty of murder, felony murder and second-degree conspiracy.

Carol Neulander, 52, was bludgeoned to death in her Cherry Hill, N.J., home with a one-foot section of lead pipe on Nov. 1, 1994, after returning home from her work as a bakery manager. The couple's son testified that he had heard his parents fight two nights before she was killed and that his father had told his mother their marriage was "over." 

As jurors filed out of the courtroom after the verdict was announced, members of Carol Neulander's family appeared relieved, wiped away tears and hugged each other.

"We are very pleased by the verdicts returned this afternoon by this jury," said prosecutor James Lynch, who was surrounded by members of Carol Neulander's family as he addressed reporters briefly. "We now move to a very critical stage of this case."

Michael Riley, the rabbi's lawyer, called Neulander a "courageous" man and said the rabbi would address the jury directly on Thursday during the penalty phase of the trial. "We are disappointed with the result, obviously," he said before leaving the courthouse.

The jury will return Thursday at 1:30 p.m. to begin the penalty phase.

Deadly Mix: A Rabbi, a Mistress and a Hit Man

On that November night in 1994, the rabbi arrived home from his synagogue, M'Kor Shalom, to find his wife, Carol, sprawled on the couple's parlor floor. She was covered in blood, the rabbi testified at his first murder trial, so he ran from the room and called 911.

The events of that night would set off eight years of investigation, shocking revelations about the indiscretions of one of New Jersey's noted religious leaders, a mistrial, and finally, a murder conviction. The case made national headlines because of its startling details: a rabbi, a mistress, a murder and a hit man.

Investigators at first had few leads in the slaying of Carol Neulander, a bakery manager and mother of three. But suspicions soon turned to the rabbi, who had been caught lying about a two-year affair he had been having with Elaine Soncini, a Philadelphia radio personality.

The case was coming together for police, who long suspected that the rabbi had arranged to have his wife killed. Prosecutor Lynch argued that Neulander feared losing the affections of Soncini and believed that a divorce would bring him too much embarrassment. Murder, the prosecutor argued, was the rabbi's way out.

In 1998, the rabbi was indicted for murder, but the case was entirely circumstantial. That would all change two years later when, in April 2000, Len Jenoff, a private investigator who was being paid by Neulander to investigate his wife's murder was persuaded by a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter to tell police what he knew about the crime.

Len Jenoff testifies at the rabbi's trial.

Jenoff told investigators and the reporter at a Cherry Hill diner that he and an accomplice, Paul Daniels, killed Carol Neulander — and that the rabbi had paid him to do it. Jenoff said he gave Daniels a cut of the $18,000 Fred Neulander paid him to kill Carol Neulander and make it look like a botched robbery.

Jenoff, however, was widely known in the suburban Philadelphia community of Cherry Hill as a storyteller. Among other things, according to testimony, he claimed falsely to have been a former CIA agent, a former FBI agent, a "comrade in arms" of President Ronald Reagan, a player in the Iran-Contra Affair and a former police officer. He also falsely told people that he was a candidate for the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, and that he had tried three times to kill Cuban dictator Fidel Castro for the CIA.

'The Bathroom Man'

Jenoff testified that Neulander's plan was to be seen at the synagogue while the murder was being carried out so that he would have an alibi.

Neulander's adult daughter, Rebecca, told police that her mother ended a cellphone conversation as she arrived home from the bakery minutes before she was killed. A man (Jenoff) the two knew as the "bathroom" man — because he had visited once before and asked to use the bathroom — had arrived. Carol Neulander told her that her father had told her to expect a delivery that night, Rebecca Neulander-Rockoff testified.

During the rabbi's retrial, numerous witnesses from Temple M'Kor Shalom testified that Neulander made a rare appearance at the synagogue on the night of the killing and even sat in on choir practice, which raised eyebrows.

After he found his wife lying on the floor that night, Neulander had not a speck of blood on his clothes, which raised questions among investigators about why he did not bend down and render his assistance to the woman he insisted he loved. Neulander also told police that he was not seeing anyone else and that his last conversation with his wife was a telephone call that afternoon in which he told her, "I love you."

One of the most damaging prosecution witnesses was Matthew Neulander, the second oldest of the Neulanders' three children. Now a physician in North Carolina, Matthew Neulander, 29, testified that he witnessed a heated exchange between his parents two days before the killing.

Myron "Peppy" Levin testified that the rabbi told him he wanted his wife dead.

Matthew Neulander, referring to his father only as "Fred," said his mother asked her husband that night if he wanted to try to save the marriage. He said the defendant just sat at the kitchen table, bowed his head and replied, "No, it's over."

Neulander's convictions come at the end of his second trial. A previous jury deadlocked in its eighth day last year. Despite a court order not to speak to discharged jurors, Philadelphia-area media outlets reported that the jury was stuck 9 to 3 in favor of conviction.

Neulander's current trial was moved from Camden to Freehold, in Monmouth County, because of intense publicity in Philadelphia and the large New Jersey suburb of Cherry Hill.

Jury Failed to Buy Defense Theory

By returning guilty verdicts, the jury apparently did not believe the testimony of two prison inmates, defense witnesses who claimed that Jenoff bragged after his arrest that the murder was a "robbery gone bad" and that Neulander was not involved.

The defense also attacked the testimony of prosecution witnesses, alleging that many of the 25 people who took the stand had motives for testifying against the rabbi and others were manipulated by police. Six prosecution witnesses were accused of lying outright.

Elaine Soncini had a long love affair with the rabbi.

Riley, the rabbi's lawyer, argued that Soncini, Neulander's former mistress, only began cooperating with police when detectives told her that she was not his only girlfriend.

Riley also argued that Neulander's racquetball partner, Myron "Peppy" Levin, did not tell police about incriminating statements he attributed to Neulander until after police informed Levin that his rabbi had ripped him off by selling him an inferior Torah. Levin testified that after a racquetball match, Neulander remarked that he wanted to arrive home one day and find his wife "dead on the floor." Levin, an ex-convict whose record includes a federal fraud conviction, initially told police that Neulander said nothing incriminating to him despite rampant rumors in the community to the contrary.

If prosecutors persuade jurors during the penalty phase that aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors, the jury could sentence Neulander to death.

In Neulander's case, only one aggravating factor exists: the fact that he paid someone to kill his wife. The defense is expected to argue that Neulander's lifetime of service to the community and the more than 1,000 families who belong to Temple M'Kor Shalom represent significant mitigating factors.

In a statement released Wednesday night, members of the congregation said they accept the jury's decision. "Our hope and prayer is that all those touched by this tragedy will now begin to know some measure of the healing peace we call shalom," the statement read.