Moshe Keller — Chabad-Lubavitch, Crown Heights (endangering conviction — not a sex-offense conviction)
A Chabad rabbi who mentored at-risk youth in Crown Heights. Charged in 2011 after a 15-year-old's disclosure, he was convicted of endangering the welfare of a child — not a sex offense — and sentenced in 2012 to three years' probation.
Orthodox Jewish (Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic) Endangering the welfare of a child (2012) — not a sex-offense conviction
- Person
- Moshe F. Keller
- Role
- Rabbi; ran a foundation for at-risk Chabad youth; spiritual mentor
- Institution
- Chabad-Lubavitch community, Crown Heights, Brooklyn
- Location
- Kings County (Brooklyn), New York
- Status
- Convicted of endangering the welfare of a child (2012) — NOT a sex-offense conviction
- Sentence
- 3 years' probation (2012); no jail time
Case in brief
Tier 1 · Court-proven — the disposition as the record states it
Read the label. Moshe Keller was NOT convicted of a sex offense. The conviction of record — in the Brooklyn District Attorney's own released list of Orthodox-community convictions and in contemporaneous reporting — is endangering the welfare of a child, arising from the allegation that he touched a 15-year-old in 2009. Summaries that describe his probation as a sentence 'for molesting' misstate the record; this file does not.
Moshe Keller ran a foundation for at-risk Chabad youth in Crown Heights and served as a spiritual mentor. In 2009 a 15-year-old told the Crown Heights rabbinical court that Keller had touched him inappropriately; that disclosure helped prompt the rabbinic court’s July 2011 ruling that the prohibition on reporting abuse to secular authorities does not apply in such cases. Keller was charged in June 2011. In May 2012 he was sentenced in Criminal Court to three years’ probation for endangering the welfare of a child. The sources of record do not specify whether the conviction followed a plea or a verdict, and this file does not guess.
The record
Tier 1 · Court-proven
| Item | Record |
|---|---|
| Disclosure | 2009 — a 15-year-old’s account to the Crown Heights rabbinical court |
| Charge | June 2011 |
| Disposition | May 2012 — endangering the welfare of a child (Criminal Court); the District Attorney’s released conviction list carries the same label |
| Sentence | 3 years’ probation; no jail time |
Status
Closed. No custodial sentence was imposed. Whether probation was completed without violation was not independently confirmed in this build and is not stated.
Attributed allegations — not court findings
Tier 2 · Attributed allegations
The touching allegation itself was resolved by the endangering conviction above, not by a sex-offense adjudication. This file records the allegation only as the origin of the charge and makes no finding about it.
Records requested & responses
This archive has not filed records requests in this case. The file rests on the published sources below and will be updated if court or institutional records are obtained, or if that changes.
Sources
- New York Times (May 11, 2012) — the 2009 disclosure, the rabbinic-court ruling it prompted, and the Criminal Court sentence of three years’ probation for endangering the welfare of a child (mirror): culteducation.com
- New York Post (July 2013) — the Brooklyn District Attorney’s released conviction list: ‘Moshe Keller — Endangering the Welfare of a Child,’ via BishopAccountability.org: bishop-accountability.org
- Tablet Magazine (July 26, 2013) — the June 2011 charge and his work with at-risk Chabad youth, via BishopAccountability.org: bishop-accountability.org
Filed October 25, 2026, from the published sources below. Minor victims are never named or identified in this file.