CAMDEN, N.J. (Court TV) — A former Philadelphia radio personality and mistress of a New Jersey rabbi on trial for ordering the murder of his wife testified Tuesday that that she was so in love with the religious leader that she made him an ultimatum in 1994: If he didn't become a single man by the end of the year, she would leave him.

"I wanted a normal life again," said Elaine Soncini, who worked as a radio host at WPEN. "I wanted a relationship with a single person. I wanted to share a life with somebody, but I had such strong feelings for Fred."

By the turn of the year, Rabbi Fred Neulander, 60, a Jewish figurehead in New Jersey and founder of the successful M'Kor Shalom synagogue, was indeed single — but not because he left his wife. On November 1, 1994, Carol Neulander was bludgeoned to death in the living room of her two-story Cherry Hill home, allegedly by two men set to the task by the rabbi.

The state's lawyer in the Camden County, N.J., trial, First Assistant Prosecutor James Lynch, claims Neulander paid the two men, Leonard Jenoff and Paul Daniels, $30,000 to kill his wife and disguise it as a robbery gone wrong. Lynch has said he intends to seek the death penalty if Neulander is convicted of capital murder.

Neulander and his attorneys claim that though the rabbi was unfaithful to his wife, he would never have ordered her execution and could have easily divorced her instead.

Soncini's testimony Tuesday outlined what the prosecution says was Neulander's main motive for ordering his wife's death — the affair. Over their two-year relationship, which was abruptly truncated by the murder investigation into Carol Neulander's death, Soncini showered the rabbi with gifts, exchanged love letters with him, conducted daily lunchtime rendezvous in secret at her home, and even adopted his faith.

Seeking Solace

The affair between Soncini and Neulander began in 1993, when the broadcaster summoned the rabbi to the death bed of her husband of 15 years. Her husband, who was Jewish, was dying in the emergency room after a long illness, was brought to a head by a late-night cerebral hemorrhage, and Soncini sought Neulander's help to let him "die like a Jew."

Neulander often helped families through painful deaths, and continued assisting Soncini by helping to bury her husband two days later. That same day, however, Neulander made steps to make the relationship a personal one. Approaching Soncini as she entered her car, the rabbi asked if he could call her at home. Two days later, he called again to ask her to lunch, and Soncini suggested he visit her at her home instead.

"I just thought it would be nice to have someone for lunch," she said. "I thought it would be more personal, that we could just talk."

That lunch, which came only 10 days after Soncini's husband died, began cordially. The two discussed poetry, books, and her late husband, Soncini testified. But it ended on a passionate note. At the conclusion of the conversation, Soncini invited Neulander into the living room.

There, Soncini told the jury, "We sat on very far ends of the couch and when it was time to leave Rabbi Neulander said 'May I kiss you?' and I said 'yes,' and he did... And then I sat over on the step and we kissed again. And he asked if he could come back and I said yes."

That lunch date was to set a precedent for what became a full-blown affair. Within months, Soncini testified, the rabbi took to making lunchtime visits almost daily, each time pulling his car into Soncini's open garage, which she would then shut after him to avoid suspicion. Neulander would also see Soncini on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, when Carol Neulander had nighttime commitments including a volunteer job working with infants infected with the HIV virus.

Throughout the radio host's testimony Tuesday, she and Neulander avoided making eye contact. Soncini stared ahead or glanced off toward the jury while the rabbi gazed to the other side of Camden County Judge Linda Baxter.

Soncini, her red-tinged hair neatly coiffed and her suit coat crisp and stark, testified in elegant, carefully crafted sentences befitting of her two decades in the broadcast industry. She maintained her demeanor even throughout testimony concerning her "relations" with the rabbi (Soncini's euphemism for sexual intercourse), though the former broadcaster shot prosecutor James Lynch an irritated look when pressed to admit she had sex in the rabbi's synagogue office.

But the broadcaster and the rabbi had a relationship that was more than just sexual, according to Soncini. She testified that she and the rabbi developed a deep-seated intellectual attraction for each other. "I felt we talked about everything," Soncini said. "We talked about personal issues, business issues ... things that were going on at the synagogue philosophy, religion ... we talked about everything. I thought he was brilliant. I thought he was extremely articulate, superior to most anyone else I had ever met."

The two corresponded regularly in the form of letters and poetry, and spoke numerous times each day — with Neulander speaking on his car phone, out on the lawn, and even in the closet to avoid tipping off his wife.

After Soncini converted to Judaism in March 1994, in a ceremony conducted by the rabbi and attended by her relatives, the relationship with Neulander became even more intense.

Soncini donated hundreds of dollars worth of office equipment and electronics to the synagogue, and purchased the rabbi expensive gifts including a tuxedo, a Mont Blanc fountain pen, a fine porcelain sculpture of Moses, a Witenaur wrist watch, and $700 worth of gift certificates toward a television.

In all, her testimony suggested that Soncini had found a true soul mate, a man she once described as "a masterpiece," and considered "a brilliant man — a genius." The only problem: That man was married to another woman.

'A Tumultuous Fall'

As the fall of 1994 approached, Soncini, tired of being Neulander's mistress, issued her ultimatum. At first, Neulander begrudgingly accepted her decision to leave him. But later, Soncini testified, the rabbi began to inquire about obtaining a divorce. Neulander was wary of being forced from his rabbinical post, said Soncini, and asked "at my age, where am I going to go if I lose my job?"

It was around that time that Neulander told Soncini he was beginning to have bad dreams portending a bloody end for his wife. "He dreamed that violence was coming to Carol," Soncini testified. "He pictured 'a tumultuous fall,' then every time something happened [he said] 'I told you it was going to be a tumultuous fall.'"

In another conversation, Soncini testified, Neulander said "I wish [Carol] were just gone, I wish her car would go into the river." That conversation bothered Soncini. "It just didn't sound right. I said 'You better not be thinking what I think you're thinking."

Another witness who may testify on behalf of the prosecution, Neulander's frequent racquetball partner, Myron "Pep" Levin, told a grand jury the rabbi made similar statements to him as well.

As the end of the year neared, Soncini said, the rabbi urged her to stay with him as the ultimatum still hung in the air. "Fred just said to hang in, something's going to happen, I'll be with you by your birthday." Soncini's birthday was December 17. One month and 16 days before that date, Carol Neulander was murdered.

After years without an arrest, Leonard Jenoff (whom Neulander had retained as a private investigator into the crime) confessed and he and Paul Daniels pleaded guilty to carrying out the crime and stealing Carol Neulander's purse to make the killing look like a robbery. Jenoff said Neulander paid him $30,000 for the killing. Both men are yet to be sentenced.

The Post-Murder Denouement

The murder and the subsequent investigation did not derail the affair at first. After the murder, Soncini testified, she continued seeing Neulander. And the rabbi appeared eager to move on with their relationship. During a religious meeting at M'Kor Shalom synagogue on November 10, he told the broadcaster "I told you to trust me — when God closes a door he opens a window."

Neulander then handed her a small scrap of paper on which he had scrawled an acronym describing his outlook in the post-murder phase of their relationship, Soncini testified.

"N-Y-Y-A-S-A-A-P," the paper said, with Neulander narrating each letter with a series of questions: "Do I think God is punishing me? No. Do I love you? Yes. Will I marry you? Yes, as soon as appropriate and possible," Soncini testified that the rabbi said.

The couple continued having "relations," though with less frequency than before, and conspired during the subsequent police investigation to keep their relationship a secret.

"Fred said to me that it was really getting kind of crazy... he said just tell them that i'm your rabbi, that I took you through your husband's death and the conversion to Hebrew," Soncini testified.

At Soncini's first police interview on December 5, she told investigators only that much. And that night, she and Neulander spoke to compare notes about what each had said.

But finally, Soncini's confidence in Neulander's side of the story wore thin, and she asked him not to call her. The rabbi stuck to his word, but sent her a series of letters that the prosecutor Lynch asked her to read out loud in court.

Thumbing through page after page of green-inked script (Neulander's trademark color), Soncini read aloud the series of sometimes poignant, sometimes seemingly manipulative, always reaching letters from her lover. One letter was but a birthday card with a cat on the front, with Neulander's inscription a spartan "for good and joyous birthdays ahead — "FJN"

In another letter, Neulander waxed poetic. "Beyond everyone's good intentions I hope you can write," he said. "I'm noticing that on the windowsill the African violets are blooming, this despite being not cared for well over the past month."

In the last letter, dated January 4, 1995, Neulander begged Soncini for "one last indulgence." "Elaine, what you and I discovered and have comes once in a lifetime, is a gift. I ask that you remember that because you do feel the same... I need you to know that I will not—because I cannot—love another. I will pay any price, wait any time, to keep my promise."

During cross examination, defense lawyer Jeff Zucker focused on attacking Soncini's moral character in an attempt to discredit her strong testimony. He first attacked Soncini for conducting an affair with Neulander so soon after husband died. When Neulander kissed her, Zucker asked, "were you in the process of grieving for your husband?" Soncini, shaken, replied "It gave me a sense of physical holding and touching with someone. I have always said that I am an adult and my immoral activity is something I take full responsibility for."

Zucker also zeroed in on how Soncini met her current husband, former Cherry Hill, N.J., police officer Larry Leaf. Soncini and Leaf, who had been engaged in surveillance of the broadcaster, began a romantic relationship immediately after Leaf finished a detail at her home on December 10, 1994, only a week after her relationship with the rabbi ended. They married in 1995.

"For whatever my weaknesses are as a human being, I like being part of a couple," Soncini explained. "It was the best thing that happened to me. [Leaf] seemed real to me. He was just a decent guy."

"Just a decent guy, and he wasn't married anymore, huh?" Zucker shot back.

Zucker also asked whether Soncini and Leaf ever discussed the ongoing investigation, but the broadcaster said that they never did. The lawyer then asked whether Soncini knew that, on January 10th, Leaf was caught going through the police file. She again denied knowledge. "All Larry told me was that he wanted to read my statement to see... if he was getting involved with a bad woman," Soncini told the jury.

Both Lynch and the defense team declined comment.

The trial, which will continue Wednesday with more of the prosecution's witnesses, is being broadcast live on Court TV.