LAKEWOOD — The attorney for a student at Beth Medrash Govoha has filed a motion to dismiss charges against the Lakewood man of trying to lure a teenage boy to perform sex for money.
Binyamin Kubani, 40, was arrested on July 3 and charged with luring and solicitation during an encounter with a 15-year-old.
Kubani is accused of approaching the victim that day in a silver van in the parking lot of a car wash at 201 Ocean Ave.
“The defendant then asked the victim if he would like to make some money, while motioning his hands to the act of masturbation,” Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Gregory Lenzi said during a detention hearing July 7.
The victim took a photo of the suspect and his vehicle, phoned his mother then reported the incident to a police officer at an NJ Transit station, the prosecutor said.
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The charges against Kubani drew a sharp response from the Orthodox community in Lakewood, including a demonstration in support of Kubani drawing hundreds and a statement from BMG condemning the arrest as a miscarriage of justice.
In his motion to dismiss the case, Kubani’s attorney, Josef Jacobovitch of Lakewood, said Kubani’s limited English led to what was a misunderstanding.
Kubani “was seeking a day laborer to clean his car’s carpet, a common local practice,” Jacobovitch wrote in the legal filings. “He approached a 15-year-old on a bicycle, asking, ‘Do you want a job cleaning the car?’”
Criminal intent has not been established, the lawyer wrote.
“No evidence suggests Kubani invited (the boy) into the vehicle, directed him to another location or attempted to isolate him,” Jacobovitch said in the legal filings. A “substantial step” must be taken toward committing one of those acts for a charge to be sustained, he said.
“The charge rests on an ambiguous interaction open to misinterpretation,” Jacobovitch wrote.
In the complaint, police said the boy told them that Kubani not only made a sexual gesture with his hand but also specifically “made verbal mention of masturbation.”
Jacobovitch wrote that it was only when the juvenile was interviewed by Lakewood detectives that he made the accusation of both a hand motion and a spoken reference to masturbation after his initial report to police.
“This shift in narrative — from a nonverbal gesture to a specific sexual statement — raises legitimate concerns about the reliability and spontaneity of the accusation,” Jacobovitch wrote.
The Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment on the filing.
The next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 18 at the Ocean County Courthouse.
Ken Serrano covers breaking news, crime and investigations. Reach him at 732-643-4029 or kserrano@gannettnj.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Lawyer for Lakewood yeshiva student tries to get charges dismissed