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By MICHAEL T. BURKHART and MIKE DANIELS
Courier-Post Staff
CAMDEN
Rabbi Fred J. Neulander, after trying to skip his own sentencing, told his murdered wife's family he had no hand in her killing and then walked away to begin what will likely be a lifetime behind prison bars.
"I cannot express remorse for something I did not do," Neulander said Thursday morning during a rambling 20-minute speech.
Superior Court Judge Linda G. Baxter sentenced Neulander to life in state prison without the chance of parole for at least 30 years. She said Neulander "is so cold and calculating that it sends shivers down the spine of any civilized person."
Neulander, 61, was found guilty Nov. 20 of hiring two hit men to brutally beat his wife, Carol, to death in the couple's Cherry Hill home eight years ago so he could continue an affair.
The Monmouth County jury that convicted the rabbi also spared his life when it couldn't agree whether he should be executed for the crime, leaving it to Baxter to impose a prison term. It was the rabbi's second trial; the first, held here, ended in a hung jury in November 2001.
Carol Neulander's three siblings and two oldest children blasted the rabbi for killing his wife of 29 years and taking her away from grandchildren she'll never know.
The rabbi, led into Baxter's courtroom in handcuffs Thursday morning, wore an orange prison jumpsuit with thermal underwear underneath. He carried a file of paperwork.
Michael Riley, his attorney, said the rabbi didn't want to attend the sentencing but did not offer a reason. First Assistant Camden County Prosecutor James P. Lynch opposed that motion, saying Carol Neulander's family had the right to address the rabbi, not an empty chair.
Baxter ruled Neulander had to remain in the courtroom and listen to his victim's family as part of his punishment.
Son Matthew Neulander, who testified against the rabbi but didn't attend the sentencing, told the court in his statement that his father is a "worthless, soulless, pathetic shell of a man."
An emergency room doctor in North Carolina, he asked that his father never be released from prison so the rabbi's grandchildren will never have to meet him.
His statement mocked the rabbi's previous statement to jurors about wanting to live a full life with his wife, and he coldly referred to his father by only his first name.
"A man capable of this fiendish act visited on the woman he wanted to `grow old with, slowly,' is clearly capable of any future horror," Matthew Neulander wrote. "I respectfully ask for the court's protection from Fred."
Margaret Miele, the victim's sister, told Baxter the rabbi deserved the maximum sentence. "He is truly a monster beyond human comprehension," Miele said. "He should never live free again."
Edward and Robert Lidz, Carol Neulander's two brothers, offered more scathing remarks about the rabbi and asked that he be given a harsh punishment. The rabbi made no eye contact with any of his former in-laws as they spoke.
After the family addressed the court, Riley announced that the rabbi wanted to speak, too.
Neulander stood and asked that his handcuffs be removed. Baxter refused.
The rabbi then said he was not prepared to talk because he had assumed his previous request not to attend sentencing would be granted. He asked the court to excuse him for any pauses or stumbling over words.
"What I need to tell you is that the internal issue, the internal part of me cannot be reached," Neulander said. "I am aware honestly of the court's, the jury decision, but I know in my heart, my mind, the decision is wrong."
Baxter glared down from the bench at Neulander as he delivered his words. Edward Lidz sat in the first row of the gallery, often putting his head in his hands.
"I know what no one in this room knows and that private part of me is what cannot be breached and that's what I meant in terms of - not that I wasn't listening, not that I didn't hear, but I also know what is true and what is untrue," Neulander said. "I and I alone know that I am innocent."
The words from his wife's family hurt, Neulander said.
"Everyone else who has spoken, everyone else who has provided written material believes that I am guilty or more insidiously needs to believe that I am guilty."
He said he was used by his former friend Leonard Jenoff, who along with Paul Michael Daniels has admitted to being the rabbi's hit men.
"I have to assume that what (Jenoff) did to me was part of his mechanisms. I know it is," Neulander said. "He betrayed me first, foremost, in taking Carol's life."
Jenoff and Daniels are scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 30.
And if the rabbi's appeals are unsuccessful, he said, he expected to die in prison.
"The reality is that when the judgment came down, it was a death sentence," Neulander said. "And I will live with that, with of course the hope of changing, with an appeal."
In announcing his sentence, Baxter said Neulander had two fair trials.
"You spent six months planning every detail," Baxter said, referring to the rabbi's murder plot. "This was not an impulse decision."
She noted how the rabbi and Jenoff spent time in Cherry Hill walking the perimeter of Congregation M'kor Shalom, the synagogue Neulander and his wife helped found in 1974. During their leisurely strolls, they talked and smoked, planning the location and method of the murder. Neulander also established his alibi, making sure he was seen at confirmation classes and choir practice in the synagogue on Nov. 1, 1994, the night of the Carol's death.
"You paid to have Carol Neulander killed," Baxter said. " You hired someone to kill your wife. You put a price on her death."
Neulander gets credit for the 940 days he has served in county prisons since his bail was revoked. He would be 88 years old before he's eligible for parole.
Riley said an appeal is planned. The Mount Holly defense attorney said he'll be involved in the preparation, but Neulander will likely be assigned a public defender. "I don' t think the final chapter's been written in this case," Riley said. "It's not over."
Benjamin Neulander, youngest of the couple's three children, was in the courtroom but did not speak. During the penalty phase of the rabbi's retrial, he'd asked the jury to spare his father's life.
After the sentencing, Lynch - who prosecuted the rabbi in both trials - said he was personally disgusted and offended by Neulander's presentation.
He also explained that he pushed for Neulander to remain in the courtroom Thursday so the rabbi would have to hear the victim impact statements.
"It reflects an individual who wants to be in control," Lynch said of the rabbi's attempt to skip the sentencing. " It reflects an individual who wants to run things. Fred Neulander was not the person in charge."
Edward Lidz later said he wasn't surprised by Neulander's words.
"I thought his comments were preposterous," he said. "He demeaned everybody by what he said and the way he said it. It seems to be the way he is. He could have gone much more quietly."
Reach Michael T. Burkhart at (856) 486-2474 or mburkhart@courierpostonline.com
