Riverside officials confirm that a verdict has been issued against Sidney Cohen on charges of Libel, Defamation, and Harassment.

Cohen was charged in connection to internet postings regarding Rabbi Yitzhak Miller, former Rabbi of Temple Beth El in Riverside CA and currently principal of RabbiYitzhakMiller.org and Executive Director of CyberJudaism.org.

Nicholas Carroll of the Hastings Research institute offers some thoughts about the verdict: Though there may have been "nuggets" of truth in some of the things that Mr Cohen stated, the vast majority of his claims were sheer fantasy. Even those elements that contained nuggets of truth were found to violate the legal definition of libel as they were made with malice and solely with the intent to damage Rabbi Miller's reputation. What this means is that even those things that may be true were presented in such a skewed manner that a reasonable person would likely misunderstand the context of the comments and unreasonably infer Rabbi Yitzhak Miller or his organization RabbiYitzhakMiller.org to have a flawed character.

"This is a sad day, " reflected Rabbi Miller. "Never before have I encountered a situation that could not be resolved with open, honest and direct communication. Even the incident that precipitated this whole string of events was resolved with an apology and a handshake. It saddens me greatly that actions such as this had to be taken. Nobody wins in a situation like this. I used my error as motivation for personal change. I hope Sidney will do the same."

Sidney Cohen refused to comment for this report.

Keywords Rabbi Yitzhak Miller Rabbi Yitzi Miller Rabbi Yitz Miller RabbiYitzhakMiller.org CyberJudaism.org RabbiYitzhakMiller.com