FREEHOLD, N.J. — Rabbi Fred Neulander's former mistress stopped lying and cooperated with police officers investigating the 1994 murder of the rabbi's wife only after police inferred that the rabbi was seeing other women, the mistress admitted under cross-examination Wednesday.

Defense lawyer Michael Riley underscored the point during his questioning of Elaine Soncini, a former Philadelphia radio personality who dumped Neulander after his wife's Nov. 1, 1994, murder and decided less than 90 days later to marry a police officer assigned to protect her during the murder probe.

Riley, a former prosecutor, is trying to persuade jurors listening to evidence in Neulander's capital murder retrial that Soncini had motives for testifying against Neulander. The 61-year-old rabbi is accused of paying confessed hit man Len Jenoff $30,000 to kill his wife of 28 years, Carol Neulander, so that he would be free to date Soncini openly.

Carol Neulander

Soncini testified on Tuesday that she told Neulander during the summer before the murder that she planned to move on and build a new life for herself, one that did not involve seeing a married man. Neulander begged and cried for Soncini to reconsider, according to testimony, and eventually promised that they would be free to see each other in the open by her birthday in December.

On Nov. 1 of that year, Jenoff and Daniels beat Carol Neulander, 52, to death with lead pipes. Fred Neulander found the body and called 911 after making sure he was seen by numerous people at Temple M'Kor Shalom, prosecutors allege.

At the start of Riley's two and a half hour cross-examination, he moved quickly to debunk the alleged ultimatum.

"It is fair, is it not, that you never gave Rabbi Neulander an ultimatum?" Riley asked.

"I never thought of it as an ultimatum. I just thought of it as a declaration that I was moving on with my life," Soncini said.

Riley asked Soncini how many times she had similar declarations. About a half-dozen times, she responded.

Unlike Neulander's lawyer at his trial last year, Riley went easy on the soft-spoken, affable Soncini, the prosecution's fourth witness and an important one. The rabbi's first trial ended with a hung jury.

Riley is expected to ask jurors during his closing arguments to dismiss Soncini's damaging testimony as the product of a woman who learned from police that the married rabbi she was in love with may have had other love interests.

Rabbi Fred Neulander faces the death penalty for the murder-for-hire of his wife.

Soncini admitted that she began dating her current husband, former Cherry Hill police officer Larry Leaf, on Dec. 17, 1994. That day was her birthday and also the same day, if not sooner, that Neulander promised Soncini that they would finally be together.

Soncini told jurors Tuesday that sometime before the murder Neulander wished aloud that his wife's car would fall into a river. Riley, however, brought out that Soncini never told police about the comment until she testified before a grand jury in September 1997.

As she left the courtroom, Soncini had tears in her eyes. She left the courthouse without speaking to reporters.

The Return of 'Peppy'

Courthouse observers familiar with Neulander's first trial welcomed the command performance of 77-year-old Myron "Peppy" Levin.

A colorful character who blurts out four-letter words without warning, Levin is kind of like a real-life version of "The Sopranos" character Corrado "Uncle Junior" Soprano. Large glasses and long rap sheet, included.

Myron "Peppy" Levin

Levin, who did federal prison stints for food stamp fraud and racketeering, testified that Neulander asked him in the fall of 1994 if he knew someone who could possibly kill his wife. According to testimony, the statement was allegedly made while the two friends of four years were cooling down after a racquetball game.

"He says, 'I wish I would come home and find my wife in the home, you know, dead on the floor," Levin testified. "I said, 'What? Are you f------- crazy? ... He also asked if I knew someone who could do it."

Police got wind that Levin was telling people that story and approached him in late 1994 about it. He denied that such a conversation ever occurred, the defense brought out on cross examination. Riley, the defense lawyer, confronted Levin with a transcript of a taped March 1995 police interview during which Levin was asked directly if Neulander ever asked if he knew someone who might kill Carol Neulander.

"No, no way," Levin insisted at the time.

He explained that he was trying to protect Neulander, his friend. But in September 1997, Levin reversed course and told a grand jury about the alleged conversation at the gym.

Riley tried to blunt the damage of the testimony by highlighting Levin's criminal record, his initial lies to police and a possible motive for his change of heart about Neulander. The defense lawyer noted that Levin's grand jury testimony came after police told Levin that a Torah he bought from Neulander for $20,000 was worth only $2,000 or $3,000.

"I'm not mad at him. I've been ripped off so many times in my life, it's pitiful," Levin protested. "That's peanuts as far as I'm concerned."

Lynch, the prosecutor, tried to rehabilitate his witness on redirect examination.

"Mr. Levin," he asked, "are you making up lies about Mr. Neulander because you are upset with him?"

"I'm not making up lies about anyone ...," Levin answered. "He told me he wanted to have his wife killed. End of story."

But it was not the end of the story. The defense asked Levin about a conversation he and Neulander allegedly had six months before the murder.

"He asked me if I knew where he could get guns and ammunition. I said, 'Fred, what in the hell do you want that for?' " Levin recalled. "He said, 'We want to get to the schvatzes, skinheads and Puerto Ricans before they get to us.' "

The statement kind of hung in the air. Riley did not say so, but the suggestion was there: If the jury doesn't buy that a well-educated, progressive rabbi would utter those words they should not believe he would ask Levin if he could suggest a hit man.

Rebecca Neulander-Rockoff

Neulander smiled a few times when Levin testified. He also smiled when his daughter, Rebecca Neulander-Rockoff of Connecticut, told jurors that she is expecting her first child.

Rockoff testified about a suspicious person who showed up at the Neulander house two weeks before the murder and asked her mother, Carol Neulander, if he could use the bathroom. He has come to be known as the "bathroom guy." The man claimed to have a package for Fred Neulander but left only an empty envelope, Rockoff said.

On the day of the murder, Carol Neulander was talking to her daughter on the telephone when the man showed up again. Carol Neulander related to her daughter over the telephone, according to testimony, that Fred Neulander told her not to be surprised if he received a delivery that day.

Rockoff said that when she last spoke with her mother, she was inviting the "bathroom guy" and another man with him inside the house because it was cold. Prosecutors contend that the men were Len Jenoff   and Paul Daniels, Carol Neulander's confessed killers.

Matthew Neulander, the rabbi's son, is scheduled to be called as the prosecution's eighth witness when testimony resumes at 9 a.m. Thursday.

The trial is being broadcast by Court TV.