In Pursuit Of Insanity Defense, Levi Aron’s Lawyer Cites Schizophrenia, Inbreeding

The newest addition to confessed child-killer Levi Aron’s defense team continued to go after an insanity plea at a court hearing earlier today. Lawyer Howard Greenberg cited factors including a previous diagnosis of schizophrenia, a childhood head injury, as well as the provocative suggestion that inbreeding in his client’s insular Orthodox community may have contributed to Aron’s mentally defective condition.

From Daily News:

“It’s a very simple case: Levi Aron is either evil or he’s crazy,” Greenberg told reporters in Brooklyn Supreme Court after a brief hearing.

“He suffered a severe head injury as a young man. There’s a history of schizophrenia,” the lawyer said. “There’s inbreeding in that community.”

He asserted that relatives sometimes marry and procreate in tight-knit Jewish groups, risking genetic defects.

“That’s an aspect of his familial history,” Greenberg said of Aron, without elaborating.

The head trauma occurred when his client fell off a bike about the age of 10, he added.

Dov Hikind, who represents Borough Park in the New York State Assembly and has met with the parents of 8-year-old victim Leiby Kletzky, told reporters that Greenberg crossed the line with the inbreeding reference.

“It’s an insult to the community. It’s degrading,” Hikind told the News. “None of this is relevant. It has nothing to do with this situation and is only meant to distract us from the reality of the horrible act.”

If acquitted by reason of insanity, the accused murderer and kidnapper would be reprimanded to a mental institution for the rest of his life

Aron, who appeared via closed circuit TV, is due back in court in March