David Cyprys’s rape charge thrown out
A historical rape charge against a former Jewish Orthodox youth leader and convicted paedophile has been thrown out of court.
David Cyprys
David Samuel Cyprys had been accused of unlawfully imprisoning and raping another male at Wheelers Hill, in Melbourne’s southeast, in November 2000.
The 53-year-old former Yeshivah Centre Jewish Orthodox youth leader on Friday faced Melbourne Magistrates Court, where his charges were thrown out.
Magistrate Michelle Hodgson said though she believed the man, Cyprys could not be committed to stand trial as there was not enough evidence for a jury to convict him.
“I do want (the complainant) to be aware that I accepted his evidence in its entirety in so far as the allegations made,” Ms Hodgson said of the man who cannot be identified.
“It is simply a matter of law that the evidence relied upon by the Crown would not be sufficient to enable me to have this matter go to trial.”
Cyprys’s defence barrister James Anderson said he would apply for costs.
The Victorian Supreme Court in February last year ordered Cyprys pay Manny Waks $800,000 for sexually assaulting him while he was a student at Yeshivah College in 1988.
Cyprys, then a 20-year-old karate teacher, abused Mr Waks before and after classes and while in the company of other students.
“This serial paedophile has never expressed remorse or taken responsibility for his destructive abuse against so many children,” Mr Waks said in a statement at the time.
“Worse, he has forced some of his victims to endure further trauma, myself included, by contesting matters in court and in other ways.”
Cyprys was also jailed for eight years in 2013 after a Victorian County Court jury convicted him of five counts of rape against a 15-year-old boy while at the Yeshivah Centre.
He had also pleaded guilty to sexually abusing eight other boys, aged between seven and 14, who were students at the school.
AAP
