Text of the statement made by Edward Lidz, brother of murder victim Carol Neulander, at Thursday's sentencing:

Judge Baxter, I thank the Court for allowing me the opportunity to speak regarding the sentence that you are about to pronounce for Fred Neulander this morning. I ask the Court that although there is little latitude in the length of the sentence that can be given, the Court opt for the maximum sentence allowable under New Jersey law.

Our family has lived with the results of this senseless, brutal crime for more than eight years. It has been the most difficult period of time in our lives. Although we have experienced other losses nothing can possibly compare to have you, Fred, call us at 1:30 in the morning on Nov. 2 to tell us of Carol's death and begin the string of lies that would last to this very day. "Someone broke into our home earlier this evening. There was a struggle, and Carol did not survive." Just as simple as that!

Well, it wasn't quite as simple as that. Before you had Carol killed in the most brutal manner imaginable and during the ensuing eight years, you acted in a manner so repulsive that words cannot begin to describe the type of person that you became. You are a murderer, You are a liar, a coward and a cheat. You dishonored Carol, yourself, your children, this Court, your congregation, the rabbinate and Judaism.

No sentence, no matter its length, can bring Carol back to us. All we are left with are the loving memories and a permanent emptiness. This Court has heard from many witnesses telling how wonderful a person Carol was. You have heard from her friends, her sister and your children, the children whom you deprived of their mother; the children whom are left with the unfathomable - to try to understand how their father could possibly have killed their mother. Now hear from one of her brothers. You know how close the four of us were and the three of us still are. We truly love each other. We are always there for each other - always. Your perverse selfishness left us with a gaping hole that can never be closed. You are the lowest form of humanity, a person so without feeling that you killed for the basest, and most purely selfish reasons. You are such a coward that you had to prey on Len Jenoff, a person so emotionally needy that you were able to convince him to do the killing for you. Preying on the weak has been your modus operandi, a character trait that you exploited too many times.

No one can or will ever excuse your actions. What kind of a rabbi or brother-in-law (a term for you that I no longer use) could have the audacity to come into our home on Oct. 31, 1994 with Carol to give my wife and our family consolation while we sat shiva after the death of her father, knowing with absolute certainty that you were having Carol brutally murdered the very next day? I've asked myself a thousand times, what kind of person was capable of that kind of fraud? What kind of person could stand before this Court and deliver an allocution that eulogized Carol? That was the singularly most disgraceful and disgusting act imaginable during your trial, that and your "open marriage" concept. How could you have the unmitigated gall to tell the jury, while begging for your life, that you had permission to break your wedding vows to sleep with whom so ever? How could you ask anyone to believe that you loved Carol and still do? Loved Carol? First you continually degraded her by bringing your mistresses into her congregation; you killed her in the most brutal way imaginable; and then you had the audacity to tell this Court, the jury and her family that you loved Carol and still do. You must believe that we are all idiots - that we are all as sociopathic as you.

Judge Baxter, Fred Neulander deserves absolutely no consideration from anyone. He should never be eligible for parole. He should spend the rest of his life in the general population of a maximum-security prison with those fellow inmates he so cavalierly disparaged while working out the sordid details of Carol's murder. He truly is a disgrace; he epotomizes the words dishonor and shame and does not deserve the sympathy he asked of the jury and the Court. Thank you.