alleged that this and other decisions represent Hynes bowing to pressure from ultra-Orthodox leaders. In January 2013, shortly before the sentencing of Satmar Hasidic counselor Nechemya Weberman for repeatedly abusing a young girl, Hynes published an editorial in the Daily News in which he wrote, "I hope the verdict and sentence sends a very clear and unmistakable message to people in certain parts of the Orthodox community — it is time to start protecting victims rather than defendants." Weberman was sentenced to 103 years in prison. Two weeks later, Jewish religious school principal Emanuel Yegutkin was sentenced to 55 years for abusing three boys. Hynes touted both convictions as victories for his office. Allegations of misconduct In 2010, Hynes' office vacated the murder conviction of Jabbar Collins, who had been convicted in 1995 of killing a Brooklyn rabbi. Collins had been sentenced to 34 years to life in prison, but won the right to retrial after the district attorney's office admitted that a key witness had recanted his testimony in the presence of a prosecutor before trial, and that this information had not been disclosed to the defense. Collins was released after another of the original witnesses against him, Angel Santos, testified that the case's original prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Michael Vecchione, had coerced Santos to testify against Collins with threats of physical violence and imprisonment. Following Collins' release, Hynes said Vecchione was a "very principled lawyer" and "not guilty of any misconduct", and said he had no plans to investigate anyone who had been involved in Collins' prosecution. The following year, Collins filed a $150 million lawsuit against Vecchione and several other prosecutors in Hynes' office, although Hynes himself was not named as a defendant. The lawsuit charged that prosecutors in the district attorney's office routinely coerced witnesses to testify through illegal threats and intimidation, and that Hynes "maintained a policy, custom and/or practice of deliberate indifference to violations by his employees of the constitutional rights of individuals who were investigated and criminally prosecuted." In a hearing for the lawsuit, Judge Frederic Block said Vecchione's behavior in Collins' trial had been "horrendous" and asked the lawyer for the city, "Hynes hasn't treated it seriously, has he?" In February 2013, Block denied the city's motion to dismiss the suit, but said that while Collins could move forward in the suit against New York City, Vecchione and the other individual prosecutors