By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SURPEME COURT — A man accused of impersonating five scholars of the Dead Sea Scrolls used over 70 e-mail accounts and various blogs to try to discredit the work and damage the careers of his father's intellectual rivals, prosecutors said Tuesday.
During opening statements of an identity theft trial in Manhattan Supreme Court, prosecutors accused Rafael Golb, 50, of creating e-mail accounts under the names of scholars who disagreed with his father, Dr. Norman Golb, on the geographic origin of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls.
Chief among the alleged victims is Dr. Lawrence Schiffman, chairman of NYU's department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, who believes the Scrolls were created in Qumran, near the Dead Sea where they were discovered in 1947.
Dr. Golb, an academic specialist in Jewish history at the University of Chicago, believes they were produced in Jerusalem before being hidden in caves near the Dead Sea.
But prosecutors said arguments about the coveted scriptures are irrelevant.
"We're not here because of an academic dispute," said Assistant District Attorney John Bandler in opening statements. "The defendant broke the law [by] ... assuming the identities of victims."
Among other charges, Rafael is accused of assuming the identity of Schiffman by way of a false e-mail account.
As Schiffman, Rafael wrote an e-mail to the NYU provost.
"Apparently, someone is intent on exposing a failing of mine that dates back almost fifteen years ago," said the e-mail.
"It is true that I should have cited Dr. Golb's articles, and it is true that I misrepresented his ideas," the e-mail continued.
Schiffman testified that Rafael's emails accusing him of plagiarizing Golb's work were unsubstantiated. He added that dealing with the backlash occupied his life for roughly six weeks as colleagues began to ignore and mistrust him.
"My colleagues were being bombarded with stuff. It was spreading and spreading and spreading and people were beginning to take it seriously," Schiffman testified.
"I couldn't understand the whole thing and where it was coming from," he added.
But defense lawyers for Rafael said he was merely a "whistle-blower" who was bringing attention to the fact that Schiffman had ripped off his father.
The e-mails Rafael wrote were parodies, the lawyers argued, meant to poke fun at the academic debate over the coveted scrolls.
The trial is expected to continue Thursday with Schiffman's cross-examination. If convicted, Rafael Golb faces up to four years in prison.
