Jenoff returns to original story: Neulander hired him to kill

Convicted hit man Len Jenoff, who three years ago swore in an affidavit that he had lied when he testified that Rabbi Fred Neulander hired him to murder the rabbi's wife, now insists his original story was accurate.

"I testified at two trials that Fred Neulander did hire me in fact to kill his wife and make it look like a robbery and that is, in fact, the truth," Jenoff said in a videotaped prison interview Monday.

He also reaffirmed his initial testimony in earlier letters to an Inquirer reporter.

Jenoff's latest statement appears highly damaging to Neulander's pending appeal. The rabbi is serving a life sentence after his conviction in 2002. An initial trial ended in a hung jury.

In the appeal, Neulander's court-appointed attorney, Patrick Cronin, cited the 2009 sworn statement from Jenoff that the rabbi had nothing to do with the killing.

Jenoff said he now is ready to swear to yet another affidavit, this time for prosecutors, recanting his recantation.

"It certainly undermines the primary defense claim," said Robert Uyehara, the assistant Camden County prosecutor fighting Neulander's appeal.

Cronin said he could not comment in depth. "We stand by the sworn affidavit of Mr. Jenoff," he said.

First imprisoned in 2000, Jenoff, now 66, is scheduled to be released in two years.

Last Sunday and Monday, in an interview broadcast on NBC10, Neulander, now 70, again said he was blameless in the 1994 killing of his wife, Carol, who was found bludgeoned to death in their Cherry Hill home at age 52.

Interviewed at Trenton State Prison, Neulander said Jenoff's accusations at trial were "devastating, ugly, and wrong - and lying."

Unaware that Jenoff has reverted to his original testimony, the rabbi touted Jenoff's recantation.

"I know he lied the first time," Neulander said. "I know it, and now everybody knows it."

Prosecutors contended that Neulander, then leader of Cherry Hill's Congregation M'kor Shalom, hired Jenoff to kill his wife so he could marry a radio personality with whom he was having an affair.

Neulander's serial marital infidelities were detailed in court. And among other key testimony, a friend of Neulander's with a criminal record and underworld ties said the rabbi had asked him if he knew someone who could arrange for the murder of his wife.

Jenoff's testimony sealed the case. He told jurors that he and another man, Paul Michael Daniels, beat Carol Neulander to death with a lead pipe after the rabbi had promised to pay $30,000.

Another part of Neulander's appeal also appears in possible jeopardy. Again citing the 2009 affidavit by Jenoff, Neulander claims that prosecutors promised Jenoff a reduced prison term in return for his testimony. The appeal contends the deal was wrongly kept secret from Neulander and the jury.

In an interview Monday at Bayside State Prison in Cumberland County, Jenoff said he was not backing away from this part of his affidavit.

However, prosecutor Uyehara said he has obtained a signed affidavit from Francis J. Hartman, who was Jenoff's lawyer when he agreed to plead guilty, attesting that no deal was made in exchange for his testimony.

Jenoff and Daniels were sentenced to serve minimum terms of 10 years and maximum terms of 23 years each. State corrections officials said Tuesday that with time off for good behavior, Jenoff is scheduled to be released in June 2014. Daniels, now 38, whom Jenoff recruited to take part in the slaying, is to be set free in June 2015.

On Monday, Jenoff said he regretted recanting his statement that the rabbi had hired him to kill.

In the interview and in a pair of letters to Inquirer reporter Nancy Phillips, Jenoff offered a convoluted explanation of why he had changed his story in 2009.

Jenoff first confessed to the killing in an interview with Phillips in 2000 after she had spent years digging into the case. She then arranged for him to meet with prosecutors, to whom he repeated his confession. He then was arrested.

Jenoff said his recantation nine years later in part reflected anger, bitterness, and depression over his years behind bars.

Shortly before he recanted, he said, he was approached by a lawyer sent to him in prison by friends. The lawyer said that if he changed his story, Neulander might win a new trial.

If so, "the prosecutor would again NEED me recanting my affidavit statements and to testify against Fred again," Jenoff wrote in a Nov. 20 letter to Phillips.

In effect, Jenoff wrote, his plan was to recant his recantation and again testify that the rabbi had hired him to murder his wife.

Jenoff said he hoped to leverage that into a reduced sentence of time served.

Later, he wrote, he realized that prosecutors instead could negate his cooperating agreement and, if that happened, he could face a potential life sentence for the killing.

In the letter, Jenoff also said the friends had promised him "money, a job when I'm released, a car and again money in my [prison] account every month."

"Like a greedy schmuck, I signed the affidavit," Jenoff wrote.

Jenoff said the lawyer urged him to claim that Phillips had been "providing sexual favors to get me to confess."

That was false, Jenoff said in apologizing to Phillips in the letters. "I was totally wrong in my legal actions," Jenoff wrote. "They were libelous and immoral."

Phillips has said her dealings with Jenoff were strictly professional.

In the prison interview, Jenoff refused to name the lawyer who approached him and said his friends had only been trying to help him, not assist the rabbi.

In his letters, Jenoff said he was writing as part of a religious requirement to atone for his "repugnant and indefensible" statements.

Jenoff's credibility was challenged at the trials. Among other things, defense attorneys cited his unfounded claims to have worked for the Mossad, the Israeli secret service agency, and to have had connections to Oliver North, a central figure in the politically charged Iran-Contra scandal.

In the interview, Jenoff, dressed in a tan prison jump suit and white socks and sneakers, appeared reasonably fit and healthy. He said he was remorseful.

"Every day, more than every day, I ask God for forgiveness," he said. "I would rather Carol Neulander be sitting here talking to you and me being in that grave."

That said, he said he was still aggrieved at how he came across during the trials - as "a loser."

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