Rabbi Fred Neulander, convicted of ordering the killing of his wife in 1994 and now serving a life term in prison.
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Key witness in Neulander murder case recants
In his affidavit, Jenoff says it was law enforcement that wanted Neulander tied to the killing.
Jailed for nine years, Jenoff says in his affidavit that he has had "a great deal of time to think about what I did in implicating Fred Neulander, an innocent man, and I wanted to set the record straight."
"I made up a story implicating Fred Neulander because I was promised leniency if I cooperated with the Prosecutor's Office."
This is not the first time that version has surfaced. Two inmates with Jenoff in the Camden County jail after his arrest in 2000 testified for the defense that he had told them the rabbi had nothing to do with the murder.
But the prosecution's case, built around Jenoff's account and the testimony of several other key witnesses, carried more weight with the jury.
Neulander's former mistress, Elaine Soncini, a onetime radio personality, testified that she had been trying to end their affair at the time of Carol Neulander's death.
She said that the rabbi had promised her they would be together by her birthday, in January, and that after his wife was found slain in November 1994, he told her, in effect: I told you so.
A second key witness, Myron "Pep" Levin, a frequent racquetball partner of the rabbi's and a convicted felon with ties to the underworld, testified that Neulander once had asked him if he knew someone who could arrange the murder of his wife.
Levin said the rabbi had told him he wanted to come home someday and find his wife dead on the floor.
That testimony, coupled with Jenoff's account of how the rabbi had enlisted him to carry out the hit, formed the basis of the state's case.
Cronin, Neulander's court-appointed lawyer, said a key issue in his relief argument was whether "promises were made for favorable testimony."
Acknowledging that Jenoff has now offered conflicting accounts, Cronin said: "We have a right to ascertain which is true."
If the recantation is the true version, he said, Neulander "is innocent . . . wrongly convicted" and entitled, at the very least, to a new trial.
Cronin likened the situation to that of the former boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, whose conviction in a double homicide was overturned after a series of appeals and a 20-year legal battle built in part on a witness' recantation.
The Prosecutor's Office has insisted that there never was any secret, unwritten deal and that Jenoff knew what he faced when he pleaded guilty.
In May 2008, Jenoff filed a motion challenging his sentence, claiming ineffective counsel and alleging he had been promised significantly less time than 23 years. At that time, the lawyer who handled the plea negotiations disputed Jenoff's assertions.
Late last year, Jenoff dropped his appeal. He then wrote a letter to Cronin.
An unsigned copy of that letter is part of Cronin's latest motion. In it, Jenoff said Neulander had "never instructed me, hired me or paid me to kill his wife."
Jenoff, who had been attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at the rabbi's Congregation M'Kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, said he had learned that Carol Neulander, who had her own business, "kept large sums of cash" at home.
He said he had planned a home burglary with an accomplice, Paul Michael Daniels. Like Jenoff, Daniels confessed to the murder.
