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By MIKE DANIELS and MICHAEL T. BURKHART
Courier-Post Staff
FREEHOLD
Fred J. Neulander's youngest child, two former congregants and a fellow rabbi tried to convince jurors Thursday that the clergyman-turned-murderer shouldn't be executed because he's still capable of helping others.
"I request that they give him the chance to affect other people in the positive way that he has proven, without a doubt, that he can do," son Benjamin Neulander, 26, testified. "Just give him the chance to show that he can still do that, because I know that he can."
This morning, the 61-year-old Cherry Hill rabbi will plead for his life before a Monmouth County panel of seven men and five women. The jury's choice: Send Neulander to prison for at least 30 years or send him to die by lethal injection.
It's the same jury that after a 3 1/2-week trial and four days of deliberations convicted the rabbi Wednesday of capital murder, felony murder and conspiracy. The rabbi hired two hit men to fatally bludgeon his wife eight years ago inside the Neulanders' home on Cherry Hill's east side.
Some jurors fought back tears while Neulander's younger son and two other witnesses gave emotional testimony on his behalf. The jury also heard a letter written by Gary Mazo, a rabbi who served alongside Neulander at Congregation M' kor Shalom in Cherry Hill.
"I urge you to spare the life of Fred Neulander," wrote Mazo, who had testified for the prosecution during the trial and now lives in Massachusetts. "People can do evil things, but that does not mean they are inherently evil."
Rabbi Neulander, dressed in his usual gray suit, showed little emotion, although his eyes appeared red near the end of his son's testimony. Often during the nearly hourlong proceeding, the rabbi folded his hands in front of himself, as if praying, or buried his face in his hands.
Camden County First Assistant Prosecutor James Lynch called no witnesses, offered no impact statement on behalf of Carol Neulander's family at their request, and didn't cross-examine the defense witnesses.
During his opening statement, he never specifically asked the jury to impose a death sentence.
"The business we are about is not designed to be something that is easy," Lynch said. "It's a matter that's very serious. It's a matter of life and death."
He asked jurors simply to weigh the evidence presented during the trial, which proved Neulander promised Collingswood private detective Leonard Jenoff $30,000 to kill his wife and make the crime look like a robbery gone bad. Jenoff and Paul Michael Daniels - who got a $7,500 cut of the payment to help in the murder plot - admitted killing Carol Neulander and testified against the rabbi. Both await sentencing for aggravated manslaughter.
Lynch said the rabbi is eligible for the death penalty because he paid others to murder his wife on Nov. 1, 1994. Defense attorney Michael Riley argued jurors shouldn't choose execution because of the rabbi's age, his otherwise spotless criminal record, and because of the good he has done for others as a rabbi and the good he could continue to do for fellow inmates behind bars.
In New Jersey, 14 inmates are on Death Row, but the state hasn't carried out any executions since reinstating the death penalty in 1982. The last execution in New Jersey occurred in 1963, when the electric chair was still used.
Today, Neulander will make a courtroom speech - known as an allocution - that he hopes will persuade jurors to spare his life.
He'll be allowed to admit any remorse he has for his wife' s death and to convince the jury of good deeds he has done. But he won't be permitted to tell the jury that he's innocent, and he can't argue about evidence or testimony presented during the trial.
Neulander, once M'kor Shalom's senior rabbi, saw his fall from grace completed Wednesday when jurors here did what a Camden County jury couldn't do last fall - unanimously agree he's a murderer. The Camden jury split 9-3 - the majority favoring guilt - after 44 hours of deliberations over seven days. The retrial jury took 27 hours to reach its verdict.
The second trial was moved to Freehold to avoid the media frenzy that surrounded the first. But the frenzy has followed the case, causing a delay in the much-anticipated penalty phase.
On Thursday, Superior Court Judge Linda G. Baxter learned the booking department at ABC's Good Morning America called seven jurors on Wednesday night about possible interviews. She warned that the entire penalty proceeding might be tainted, but later allowed it to proceed after speaking individually with the 12 jurors and four alternates.
Baxter warned the TV network would face punishment for the phone calls to jurors, but she did not elaborate.
During the penalty phase hearing Thursday, jurors heard witnesses again and again discuss how Neulander had performed many good deeds in the past and would continue to do so if he were allowed to live.
Besides his son, former M'kor Shalom members Harold Cohen and Beth Blough testified on his behalf. They offered warm memories of Neulander as a caring spiritual leader.
Cohen, who has known Neulander for 18 years, admitted the rabbi led a double life - one as an upstanding religious leader, the other as a philanderer.
"He was devoting his full energy to the people he was counseling and shepherding. He led a life that on one plane, on one level, affected the lives of thousands of people," Cohen said.
Blough, who has known the Neulander family for 31 years and baby-sat the rabbi's children, gave the day's most heart-wrenching testimony, breaking down in tears at one point.
"Fred is not an easy person, not as a friend, not as a mentor, not as a coach," said Blough, who now lives in Green Bay, Wis. "Fred never let go. He was like a pit bull, no matter what the subject."
Blough went on to explain how the rabbi offered her support when her husband was about to die following a heart attack. It was Neulander who convinced her to take her children to the hospital to see their father one last time.
"It was the best choice I ever made in my life," she said. "He (Neulander) has been there through all the difficult times in my life."
The final witness to appeal to jurors was Benjamin Neulander. Now a teacher, he was attending the University of Michigan when his mother was killed.
He never mentioned his mother or the murder during his testimony. Instead, he remembered his dad on Thursday as a busy man who always made time to watch him play soccer or talk with him when he needed advice.
"I know that when I needed someone to be there for me, for any particular difficulty that I was having, he and I could relate on a very special level," Benjamin Neulander said.
And, he said, he wasn't the only person touched profoundly by his father, once a well-respected community leader in South Jersey.
"I don't think he influenced me any more, any less, than any of the other thousands of people he's come in contact with over the years," the son said. "And he sent me down a good and a strong path. I think that there are other people he can do that for still."
The rabbi's two other children, Dr. Matthew Neulander and Rebecca Neulander Rockoff, didn't attend Thursday's proceedings. Both testified against their father earlier in the trial in testimony that some observers say sealed the rabbi's fate.
Reach Mike Daniels at (856) 486-2457 or mdaniels@courierpostonline.com
