Author’s Note: North Woodmere resident, Jacob Walden, is on trial on multiple counts of sexual exploitation of children and various possession of CSAM charges. For more information on the background, see ZA’AKAH’s original reporting on the case.

Following testimony from the HSI case agent, things went off the rails. While discussing scheduling for the next day of trial, Walden’s lawyer, Mark Agnifilo (of Diddy and Luigi fame) said that his client would be testifying. This was a shock to everyone because firstly the rest of the day’s testimony had been pretty damning and Walden could be asked directly about all of it on cross examination, and secondly because it’s rare for defendants to testify at their own trials.

The reason Mark gave for Walden testifying was that Walden wanted to explain to the judge that while he may have paid these girls to produce custom CSAM for him, his purpose in engaging with them was not so the CSAM would be produced. The CSAM was almost a byproduct, he argued, of what Walden really wanted – connection and roleplaying.

Walden’s story, he said, was that he was sexually abused as a child, and that led him to have a desire to reenact and roleplay what he experienced as a way of asserting control, and sort of exorcising the demons of his childhood. His other lawyer, Jacob Kaplan (also of Luigi fame) argued that this was how Walden was processing his trauma.

It turned into this weird discussion that, had any of them gone to yeshiva, tried to split the child exploitation statute into a gavra/chevtza argument. The child sexual exploitation statute reads “Any person who employs, uses, persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any minor to engage in…any sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing any visual depiction of such conduct or for the purpose of transmitting a live visual depiction of such conduct, shall be punished as provided under subsection”

They seized on the word “purpose” and argued that when the statute says purpose it refers to the intent of the person accused of sexually exploiting the children, not that the action taken by the person led to the creation and transmission of CSAM. In other words, instead of the crime being committed by the act of paying a minor so they create CSAM and transmit it, and then them receiving payment, creating the CSAM, and transmitting it, the crime is only committed if in the process of doing all of that the accused wants the CSAM to be created for the purpose of created CSAM, and intends the entire interaction with the child to be for the purpose of creating and transmitting CSAM.

If you’re confused reading this, you’re in good company. The judge and prosecution were also confused. The word purpose in the statute plainly and clearly refers to the action and result, not what motive the accused had for taking the actions he took.

So Walden wanted to make the case to the jury that while it may be true that he paid children for pictures and videos of themselves naked and performing sexual acts on themselves, he didn’t really care about the CSAM for its own sake. He just wanted connection, and to roleplay, and “make lemonade from lemons” to heal from his own trauma of childhood sexual abuse.

One issue with this was an outstanding motion in limine made before the trial by the prosecution to preclude Walden from testifying about, among other things, his history of sexual abuse as a child. Such testimony is generally considered mitigation evidence, and is not considered relevant to the question of whether a person committed a crime or not. Such evidence and testimony is generally only relevant for sentencing. The judge hadn’t ruled on the motion before the trial started because it wasn’t clear if it was necessary. It would only be necessary to get a ruling on that question if Walden decided to testify.

Since Walden was now saying he wanted to testify, that question came back. The prosecution argued that information about Walden’s sexual abuse was purely mitigation, not relevant, and should therefore not be allowed. Walden’s lawyer argued that the information about his sexual abuse was central to this defense he wanted to offer since it explained his purpose for the actions he took with these girls.

The judge didn’t seem particularly sympathetic to this argument. At one point the judge exclaimed that he hadn’t just fallen off a turnip truck, and read a random sample of chat records between Walden and one of the victims in which Walden gives specific instructions of what she should perform and send him. The judge then asked how it was reasonable to say Walden hadn’t done this for the purpose of creating CSAM.

After some more argument, Mark pontificated a little bit saying that Walden’s “constitutional rights are at their pinnacle when the defendant wants to testify in his own defense to defend himself in a case with a 15 year minimum sentence.” Mark argued that the abuse Walden suffered wasn’t a coincidence, and that Walden had never abused a child the way he had been abused. He said Walden didn’t want to abuse a child the way he had been abused, and reiterated that Walden wasn’t really interested in the images and videos produced for him.

In other words, this was Walden’s way of blowing off steam and processing his own abuse in a way that allowed him to not directly and physically sexually abuse a child.

The visual aspect of it held no interest for him, Mark argued. Walden was interested in the ability to control someone the way someone else had had control over him. He said it made Walden feel less dysregulated, and that he wasn’t trying to garner sympathy with such an argument. If the jury credited that as a defense, he said, then it was a defense. The judge should allow a jury to hear this and decide for themselves.

Walden was apparently very insistent on wanting to say all of this in front of a jury (despite, no doubt, the strenuous warnings against doing so by his lawyers who had repeatedly mentioned why this wasn’t malpractice in their arguments), so Mark Agnifilo asked the judge for something extraordinary. He asked the judge for a proffer, to essentially allow Walden to get on the stand without the jury present, say what he wanted to say, and then let the judge evaluate whether or not he would allow Walden to testify before the jury about his own sexual abuse.

This is a monumentally stupid idea. While it may not have been taking place in front of the jury, it was taking place in open court, in front of the prosecutors, the assembled audience, and on the record. Anything Walden would say during this proffer would be fair game for the prosecutors on cross examination both during the proffer and if Walden subsequently testified in front of the jury.

His lawyers were also essentially conceding guilt on the production charges also by admitting that he had paid these girls money in exchange for sending CSAM to Walden while still disputing his motive. Since motive is irrelevant to the elements of the crime of sexual exploitation, Walden’s lawyers had essentially just given the game away and Walden was about to self immolate on the stand. But regardless of what his attorneys may ave advised him, a defendant has the right to take the stand in his own defense, so Walden took the stand.

During a break between the offer for a proffer and Walden testifying, Mark Agnifilo, a nervous kibitzer by nature, came over to the prosecution table and told the lead AUSA “When I lose my law license I can become a carpenter.” After the break, before Walden took the stand, the judge told his lawyer that he wouldn’t be allowing testimony about Walden’s sexual abuse as a child at trial and asked if that changed his decision to proffer. Walden’s lawyer said Walden wanted to proffer anyway, so Walden took the stand and was sworn in.

In his statements to the court Walden blamed everyone but himself for what he did with those girls. He started out by saying that he grew up in an ultra orthodox community as a middle child syndrome kid to parents who were separated one generation from the Holocaust. He said that he felt left out of his family because his older brothers had each other but he didn’t have anyone. He said he loved his mother and that his father was a very pious rabbi who raised him and his brothers to be gentlemen.

He described his mother as a black sheep, with a funny personality. He recounted how she was involved in a serious accident on the Palisades Parkway and was pronounced dead on the scene before later recovering after a long stay in the hospital.

He described how in his ultra orthodox community he didn’t have any kind of sex education, no access to or connection to girls, and how modesty was such a big focus. He told a story about how his family had made sure that while his mother was in traction they stuck in some kind of head covering underneath the apparatus holding her neck in place to make sure her hair was covered.

After his mother’s accident, he said, some of his cousins moved into his house to help out with the family. He said he saw them as parental figures, and big brothers. During this time, he said, one of his cousins noticed that he was quiet, nerdy, and a loner, and he groomed and started abusing Walden. It began with molestation, he said, and then progressed to oral and anal rape, continuing for 6-7 years when the cousin would come visit. He said he had no one to talk to about it because abuse was so taboo in the community. He said he didn’t have a therapist to talk to either because that was also taboo. Eventually, he said, that led him down the path to sex addiction.

Walden said that it started with sneaking Sears and Macy’s catalogues to look at lingerie pictures, progressed to porn, and then to strip clubs, sex workers, countless men, women, and trans people. He described himself as a true addict who wasn’t aware of his addiction. Despite his addiction, he said, he always stayed orthodox, and despite going to multiple high schools, he went to beis medrash after high school and studied abroad.

In 2019, he said, 25 years after his abuse, he went to recovery. He started in Alcoholics Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, and went to several rehab facilities. He said that the only rule he had was that he didn’t want to do to someone else what had been done to him, and that during his recovery he implemented numerous safeguards for himself. His wife, he said, went through a lot with him, but stayed with him.

When he started with 12-step, he said, he took on two resolutions. The first was that he would no longer lie, and then he said that since 2019 he hadn’t lied to anyone. The second was that no matter how many times he fell he would always get back up. Addiction wasn’t curable, he said, and requires constant work.

Turning to what he’d done in this case he said that he had wanted to make sure he didn’t do to anyone else what had been done to him, but in all of his attempts to heal his trauma nothing seemed to be working. He said that he had checked into rehabs, but was thrown out when he started talking about being attracted to young teenagers. He described his real desires as wanting the connection he really desired as a teenager instead of being raped and molested by a man he wasn’t attracted to and didn’t consent to. He said he wanted the experience of having a girlfriend, and sexting, and having that kind of teenage relationship that had been robbed from him so that he could heal from what was done to him.

The stuff he did with these 4 victims, he said, wasn’t about the CSAM. It was about the roleplay. He said that the daddy stuff wasn’t about incest or any desire to have incestuous sex with children, it was because he met his victims in sugar baby chat rooms where he was looking to roleplay ageplay kink, but not all kink is legal.

He said that he was really looking for connection in those chats because his marriage was arranged and loveless and he wanted connection. He did say he respected his wife and how well she takes care of their children. After he started with SA, he said, he was entirely sexless, both with other people and with himself. After he admitted his attraction to children, he said, he was put on antipsychotics and antidepressants, and he stumbled in his sobriety with a chatroom online. He said that he was triggered by what he saw in there and it caused him to spiral.

Walden said that it led him to want to recreate the circumstances of his abuse and be like his abuser, just better, nicer. It was just sexting in his mind, he said, it was basically legal. He said he had learned in rehab that the age of consent was 16. When the judge pushed him again on why he had had them make pictures and videos instead of just talking to them if it was just about wanting to sext (it’s likely the judge didn’t understand that by sext Walden may have meant talk and send inappropriate pictures back and forth), Walden said that he had thought what he was doing was legal. That’s why he had looked for girls in other countries, he said, where the age of consent was lower.

He reiterated that all he wanted to do was make lemonade from lemons.

The chats were only to have the experiences he had missed, he said, and the purpose of the pictures was just to feel connected. It’s true he asked for pictures, he said, but he also asked for a lot of other things. He insisted that this was just about connection and roleplay. It wasn’t real, he said, he had just met them on sugar baby chat rooms. He said he just wanted to heal and achieve the goals in his sick brain.

He ended his direct testimony by saying that he was being honest and didn’t mind talking about all these things he feels guilty about because he had lived with this all his life and just wanted a chance to defend himself on this one charge.

After he finished, the prosecution cross examined him. The prosecutor started by asking if he had used Snapchat because it was centered around sending photos and videos. Walden said that it was just for the purpose of seeking connection and roleplaying. The pictures, he said, were just for the purpose of proving that the girls were participating in the roleplaying. In other words, he needed visual proof that they were doing their part.

The prosecutor, unmoved, asked him if he paid for the pictures and videos. Walden pushed back saying that the pictures were just components of what he really wanted which was connection and control over these girls. It seemed legal and harmless to him, he said, and besides, they offered. He cares about the youth, he said, just as much as some of the other people in the courtroom who had dedicated their lives to protecting kids, and he had protected kids. (ZA’AKAH’s director and a number of HSI’s child exploitation unit were present.)

The context of that statement was strange. He seemed to be implying that since he was attracted to children but was committed to not sexually abusing them physically, he was, in fact, protecting children from sexual abuse by “only” soliciting these minors (who he didn’t consider minors anyway) for CSAM (that wasn’t for the purpose of creating CSAM, just to allow him to play out his fantasy of controlling these girls the way his abuser controlled him).

The prosecutor again pressed him on paying for the pictures and videos. Walden said that he had paid but hadn’t enticed or produced it. He was not guilty of that and he wanted to say that to the jury. Given the context of this statement it’s quite likely he was making an argument that since the victims were in sugar baby chats anyway and essentially offering this content to anyone (according to him), he wasn’t enticing them to make anything they hadn’t made for many other many already.

The prosecutor again pressed him on paying the kids for pictures and videos. Walden insisted he didn’t produce CSAM. The prosecutor asked him again about why he paid for pictures and videos. Walden said that he had also paid for other stuff unrelated to pictures and videos. The prosecutor asked him if he had done that to Jane Does 1 and 2 who had testified earlier. Walden said he had bought pictures from them but that he wasn’t being charged with that. He said he had purchased access to their pictures but hadn’t produced or enticed anyone to produce CSAM. He said he hadn’t seen evidence that any pictures were produced. It’s unclear what he meant by that because the chat records had clearly shown him giving specific instructions for his victims to follow before he paid them.

Walden said that he was a married man, a rabbi, and a loving father who shouldn’t have been sexting with anyone, regardless of how old they were, but that this wasn’t a moral trial.

The prosecutor again pushed back saying that Walden had seen evidence of himself soliciting younger girls. Walden responded saying that he had specifically looked for girls in Argentina (one of whom was 14 and one of whom was 16) where the age of consent was 13. He said that in his community the age of consent was also 13, so in his head this was legal.

The prosecutor then asked him about his statement that he hadn’t lied to anyone since 2019. If that was true, he asked, why had Walden told the girls he loved them? Walden said that was just roleplay. The prosecutor asked if that roleplay was in his mind, and Walden said that the conversations had begun in roleplay chatrooms. The prosecutor pressed further asking if that meant Walden hadn’t actually loved them. Cross examination ended with that.

On redirect, Mark asked him to clarify what his purpose was in paying the girls to create the pictures and videos and how that related to his trauma. Walden said that his purpose was clear by the requests he made, and that his psychological purpose was that he was trying to heal his trauma through these connections.

The judge cut in and told Walden that the courtroom was about truth, and that it was possible for people to lie to themselves. The judge told Walden he would read some of the chat logs to him and asked Walden to think about whether he had produced CSAM. The judge then read from the chat logs where Walden asked one of the victims to get naked on video, asked to see her in the shower, asked for specific angles on her body, asked to inspect every inch of her, asked her to take her shorts off on video – In other words, the judge said, you asked them to produce CSAM.

Walden said no. The judge exclaimed, “really? We must be speaking a different language.” Walden said that he had just wanted to see it. The judge pushed on Walden saying that he had asked them to make videos. Walden said it was just so he could see it. The judge exclaimed to Walden that he was lying to himself, and setting up an internal defense mechanism for himself. He told Walden that he was clearly asking them to produce videos, and that he had 100 examples in the chat records.

Walden responded saying that he wasn’t denying it, he’s just asking for a chance to tell the jury why he did it. He said that he wanted to fantasize, and the production was just so he could see what was being done. If he was a peeping Tom, Walden argued, he would have just asked them to do those things in person and never would have made CSAM.

The judge seemed dumbfounded at this point, and told Walden that he wasn’t persuaded by the proffer. If that didn’t stop Walden from testifying that’s fine, the judge said, but Walden would not be allowed to discuss his own sexual abuse during his testimony. Without the trauma narrative, the judge said, the rest of what Walden was saying may not make much sense. The case law didn’t align either, the judge said. Mark said they would decide on Thursday whether or not Walden would testify. The judge said he didn’t understand the thought process.

Trial is scheduled to continue Thursday morning. If Walden testifies it will likely be brief. Regardless, the defense isn’t planning on having any other witnesses testify and will rest. Summations will follow, the jury will then be charged, and be sent to deliberate. We could have a verdict as early as Thursday afternoon.

It seems pretty clear from watching the insanity that played out during that proffer that Walden is a profoundly delusional person who has never experienced a single real consequence in his entire life. He has been blessed with tremendous success in business and is fabulously wealthy, which makes everyone around him inclined to forgive him for his disgusting perversions because he went to 12-step. At his detention hearing, which was triggered by him circumventing the pretrial monitoring on his phone during house arrest to order a woman to come to his house for sex on a Friday night in exchange for a few hundred dollars, he was accompanied by a courtroom full of supporters, dozens of letters of support, and Rabbi Yaakov Bender himself in person.

Until Walden’s arrest, not a single person in his life – even the ones aware of his predilections – had ever made him face a single consequence for his actions. His wife stayed with him despite knowing (according to her statements to HSI during the airport search) about his attraction to children. His family, friends, and community allowed him to open a shul in North Woodmere. All of them stood by him as he disrespected family and preyed on children. He built this narrative in his head that he’s a good guy because he’s not physically reenacting his abuse despite perhaps wanting to, and no one has ever bothered to disabuse him of this insanity because the gravy train kept chugging.

And in this haze of enabled self-delusion, this monster thought that if he could just express these delusions to a judge and jury, they would act like everyone in his life has acted toward him, and continue refusing to make him face any consequences for his actions. This is the same man who spent his year and change in jail following his detention using a contraband cellphone to talk to more girls, according to government filings in the case, and contacting other convicted abusers to try and get revenge on ZA’AKAH for reporting about his case.

He finally seems to have hit a wall with this judge and these prosecutors who aren’t indulging his self-delusions, and it must be a very disorienting experience. Had anyone in his life ever bothered to treat him like the disgusting, monstrous predator he clearly is, perhaps this trial could have been avoided. Perhaps the girls he solicited, and tried to recruit, and induced to produce CSAM, could have been spared the exploitation. Perhaps the world would be safer from this predator who sought out children in countries with lax age of consent laws to abuse because in his twisted mind they were fair game.

This is clearly the result of a family and community that doesn’t take sexual abuse seriously, that doesn’t take prevention and response seriously, and a community that values power, money, position, and image more than they value child safety. Every single person involved in Walden’s life should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.