FREEHOLD, N.J. — The courthouse and jury is different and the defendant has a new lawyer, but the murder-for-hire retrial of Rabbi Fred J. Neulander otherwise featured the same basic cast of characters when the second trial opened Monday.

First and foremost, there's Neulander. The founder of one of southern New Jersey's largest synagogues, the defendant could face the death penalty if found guilty of paying a hit man $30,000 to kill his wife of 28 years, Carol Neulander, in the couple's Cherry Hill home in 1994.

There is Elaine Soncini. Neulander began a long, passionate affair with the Philadelphia radio personality a short time after her husband died in 1992. 

And there is Len Jenoff, the confessed hit man. One of the most interesting characters in the bunch, Jenoff cracked the case in May 2000 when he went to police on the eve of the scheduled start of Neulander's first trial and confessed that he and roommate Paul Daniels committed the murder for $30,000.

Jenoff testified last year that he and Daniels went to the Neulander home in Cherry Hill, an affluent suburb of Philadelphia, and beat Carol Neulander to death.

Neulander sat still with his left index finger touching his upper lip as Camden County prosecutor James Lynch told a fresh jury of seven women and nine men that Carol Neulander was beaten to death with lead pipes because Neulander wanted her "out of the picture" so he and Soncini would no longer have to sneak around.

"You are going to hear evidence about a horrible evening, the evening of November 1st, 1994," Lynch said, beginning his 35-minute opening statement. "Carol Neulander was brutally beaten and killed in her home. You are going to hear evidence as to how it happened and why it happened. And you are going to hear evidence about who is responsible."

By all outward appearances, Lynch said, Neulander was a well-liked rabbi, loving husband and father of three adult children.

"But Rabbi Fred Neulander did not meet the reputation. The man did not meet the reputation. The man was deeply, deeply flawed," Lynch said. "You are going to hear evidence to convince you that he is a man of God who acted in a wholly ungodly fashion in the course of carrying out his private life."

Lynch tapped his finger loudly on the jury box several times as he addressed the panel. Sometimes he raised his voice.

"If in the end we satisfy you that he is responsible, that he planned and conspired to take the life of his wife, he is not entitled to walk away acquitted," Lynch said before taking his seat.

Neulander's new defense lawyer, Michael Riley, noted during a much shorter opening statement that his client is presumed innocent and stressed that Neulander should only be convicted if the charges are proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Instead of arguing that prosecutors charged an innocent man, Riley, a former prosecutor, urged jurors to look at the evidence closely. He said that if they do, jurors will see that the main witnesses against Neulander all have reasons to say what they will say.

Soncini, he said, gave numerous and conflicting statements to police about her relationship with Neulander early in the investigation, in part to keep her job and help Neulander. She only began cooperating when detectives informed her that he had other girlfriends, Riley said.

Jenoff, Riley continued, could not tell the truth if his life depended on it. And for a time, it did. Unlike Neulander, who faces the death penalty, Jenoff pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter and could, in theory, be sentenced and paroled almost immediately after the trial. Riley argued that Jenoff has a vested interest in helping the prosecutors trying to convict Neulander.

"Len Jenoff's life is nothing but lies. He doesn't exist. He is not a real person. He is nothing but a liar," Riley said, repeating himself to stress the point.

In addition to telling people that he had CIA ties, Jenoff also told lies about the crime itself, Riley said. For one thing, he claimed to have struck Carol Neulander a single time. Daniels testified that he struck her two more times. But investigators determined that she was actually struck a dozen times, meaning either Jenoff, Daniels, or both lied, Riley said.

"Len Jenoff went to the Neulander house that night to kill her and then take her money," Riley said, adding that Jenoff was aware that Carol Neulander often took large amounts of cash home from the bakery she managed.

Riley ended his 20-minute opening statement by pointing out that the state's best evidence against Neulander, the testimony of Jenoff, comes with credibility questions which the jury will have to answer.

"There is no evidence of Mr. Neulander's involvement in this case unless you listen to the words out of the mouth of Len Jenoff," the defense lawyer said.

Neulander, whose white hair is considerably thinner than last year, is being held without bail. The trial, expected to last three or four weeks, was moved here to Monmouth County because of the intense publicity that accompanied the first trial in Camden County.

Same witnesses, different trial

The roster for Neulander's second trial was not the only the similarity. Lynch, the prosecutor, had the same starting lineup.

The prosecution's first witness, Ronald Halperin, took the stand to testify that Carol Neulander appeared perfectly fine earlier on the night she was killed. She attended a meeting of senior managers of Classic Cake, a company that she founded and sold, but still managed.

A consultant to Classic Cake, Halperin said Carol Neulander was a little late for the meeting, arriving at 5:15 p.m. The group broke at 6:45 p.m.

On cross-examination, Halperin said that if Carol Neulander took large amounts of cash home to count it, he was unaware of it. The defense has argued that Jenoff killed her for cash and left behind all of the jewelry she was wearing, including a diamond ring and gold wristwatch.

As if prosecutors were following a script, Lynch's second witness was the second witness during the first trial too. New Jersey State Police Det. Richard Bumbera was one of the first officers to respond to the Neulander home after the murder.

Bumbera, a trooper on routine patrol at the time, testified that Fred Neulander was composed and did not appear upset when Bumbera arrived. "She's in there," Neulander said, according to Bumbera.

Riley questioned Bumbera extensively about his written reports, underscoring the fact that the trooper never mentioned Fred Neulander's appearance or anything he said at the scene.

Bumbera, however, did not waver. He said the homicide was his first and it happened in his patrol area while he was working. He said he will always remember everything that happened at the scene vividly, even if he did not write it all down.

"Maybe if I had driven through that development, I could have prevented it," Bumbera said.

Bumber and the prosecution's third witness, Lt. Arthur Folks of the Camden County District Attorney's Office, both described entering the Neulanders' living room to find Carol Neulander lying on the carpet near a couch.

Blood was everywhere -- on the couch, walls and ceiling, Folks testified. The rest of the house was in "very good order" and nothing appeared to be disturbed beyond the room where the killing occurred.

Folks also testified that he asked Fred Neulander to accompany him to a police station after Neulander insisted that he knew nothing about an incident that occurred a week earlier. Rebecca Neulander-Rockoff, the couple's adult daughter, told police at the scene that a man had gone to the home a week earlier and given Carol Neulander a plain white enveloped that was empty.

Folks said everyone referred to the man as "the bathroom guy" because he asked to use the restroom. Fred Neulander, however, insisted he did not know what his daughter was talking about.

Folks was on the stand while jurors heard a tape recording of a 911 call Fred Neulander made after finding his wife's body.

"There's blood all over. I don't know what to do ... She's in the living room," Neulander told the operator during a six-and-a-half minute call.

Neulander seemed concerned about two things during the call: whether he should touch the body and whether his emergency medical technician son, Matthew Neulander, would hear about what happened over a radio.

"Do you want me to touch her? What do you want me to do?" Neulander asked.

Noting during his opening statement that Neulander had no blood on him, Lynch told jurors that the defendant's lack of compassion for his mortally injured wife of 28 years is telling. Riley, the defense lawyer, countered that people act differently in such situations and that Neulander's behavior did not make him a killer.

Folks' testimony resumes at 9 a.m. Tuesday. The trial is being broadcast by Court TV.