CAMDEN, N.J. — A rabbi who was once a pillar of New Jersey's Jewish community was called a fallen man by both sides Thursday in the closing arguments of his trial for ordering the bludgeoning death of his wife. The difference, the lawyers said, was just how far he fell.

"[The defendant] not only failed the fundamental test of decency, he failed the human test: You don't take the life of another human being," said Camden County First Assistant Prosecutor James Lynch in Fred J. Neulander's capital murder trial, holding aloft a picture of the rabbi's slain wife.

"What he did was dead wrong," admitted Neulander's defense lawyer, Dennis Wixted, earlier, speaking of the rabbi's admitted sexual dalliances. "But it's a long, long way from there to conspiracy to commit a murder."

The six-man, six-woman jury began deliberations Thursday at 3:07 p.m.

Neulander, 60, is charged with capital murder, felony murder, and conspiracy to commit murder for allegedly recruiting a congregant of his successful M'Kor Shalom synagogue, Leonard Jenoff, to kill his wife. Carol Neulander's bloodied body was found on the floor of her Cherry Hill, N.J., living room exactly seven years ago on Nov. 1, 1994. The mother of three was the victim of more than a dozen blows to the head by a heavy metal rod.

The prosecution's case

Using a total of 21 witnesses over eight days, Lynch argued that Neulander ordered his wife's execution because he wanted to continue an affair with Elaine Soncini, a popular Philadelphia radio host. Lynch has indicated that he intends to seek the death penalty if the rabbi is convicted.

Defense lawyers Jeff Zucker and Wixted used 15 witnesses over three days to portray their client as a religious leader who may have fallen from grace, but had no involvement in the plot to murder his wife. Zucker and Wixted have argued that Jenoff concocted the conspiracy to shift the blame for the murder, which they contend was a robbery gone wrong.

"This is a case about lust, greed, arrogance, and betrayal," began Lynch in his summation. "All of those characteristics you have had the opportunity to see first-hand in this defendant, Fred Neulander. This is a man who had it all. Everything was not enough for this defendant. Because, as we've learned, the sun and the moon and the stars have to revolve around him."

Lynch focused his hour-plus statement squarely on the defendant, who fell victim to the lawyer's withering cross-examination over a two-day stint on the stand. "This is a hollow man," the lawyer continued. "When you open him up and look inside, there is nothing of substance there. No honor, no decency, nothing of substance there. This is a man capable of planning and hiring someone to kill his wife."

But while Lynch may have spent much of his summation attacking the defendant, he was also careful to qualify the weakness of his key witness, Jenoff, an admitted perjurer and confessed murderer.

"Mr. Jenoff is not in this case because he was chosen by the Camden County prosecutor's office or the Cherry Hill police," said Lynch. "He's involved in this case because he was specially selected by this man, this defendant." Jabbing his index finger at Neulander, Lynch's voice boomed about the courtroom. "He's the one that selected Leonard Jenoff, not the state."

Between the time his wife was murdered and December, 1996 Neulander paid Jenoff a total of $2,400 for supposed investigative duties. Lynch reminded the jury that Jenoff testified this was a form of continued payment for the murder and spelled it out as yet another in a string of coincidences that, together, the prosecutor said, weaken Neulander's story.

Lynch also strung together the claims Neulander has made to explain much of the circumstantial evidence that has formed the bulwark of the state's case. Is this a man, the lawyer asked, who "has the bad luck to lose his precious wife, has the bad luck to have the people who committed the murder to come to the house on the one night his son wouldn't have been there to protect his mom, has the bad luck to hire [to solve this murder] one of the three people in the world that does not want to see that crime solved ... This poor man just can't catch a break, can he?"

Lynch then broke into a syrupy voice thickly-laced with sarcasm. "One coincidence after another," he went on. "Terribly misfortunate. Isn't that what this is? Just a horrible, horrible list of coincidences?"

The rabbi's defense

In his 90-minute closing argument, Wixted, who has handled many of the important witnesses including Neulander, the hitman, Jenoff, and his admitted accomplice, Paul Michael Daniels, tried to answer many of the same questions his client tried to account for in his two days on the stand.

Wixted cautioned the jury against falling for the "emotional smokescreens" that the State had set up in its case. "No matter what you think of the powerful emotions the state has drawn into this case... that cannot be used as a substitute for proof."

Focusing on one of the more shocking character flaws of his client, that Neulander resumed a sexual relationship with Soncini mere weeks after his wife died, the lawyer admitted "Is that terrible? Sure it is. Your wife ... is dead in a coffin. On a personal level, that is despicable."

Wixted attacked both hitmen during his summation, calling them "one knows nothing about Mr. Neulander, the other couldn't tell the truth if it fell on him." But he focused on the state's key witness, Leonard Jenoff, saying that Jenoff's testimony was the only real link between Neulander and his wife's murder.

"What do we have? We have Leonard Jenoff. What does that corroborate? Not that [Jenoff and Daniels] were paid, not that Mr. Neulander had anything to do with that — and ladies and gentlemen, that's reasonable doubt."

Saying the hitman built his life on his ability to lie, Wixted remarked sarcastically, "I'm no match for Jenoff. I'm just not good enough. This man's a pro. He can confound judges, he can confound police officers, he can confound people in business... nobody knows when he tells the truth and when he lies."

"Not only is Mr. Jenoff attempting to con police, to con lawyers, and to con judges... he is attempting to con a verdict [out of you]," he continued. "Mr. Jenoff ladies and gentlemen, murdered Mrs. Neulander and seeks to profit from her murder — and he needs your verdict."

Wixted also used testimony from his final witness, James "Mickey" Rooney, who brought in at the last minute letters in which Jenoff discussed profiting from the crime by selling the rights to his story.

Of Elaine Soncini, Neulander's mistress of two years who testified that she made the rabbi an ultimatum — become a single man by 1995 or she would break off the relationship — Wixted called her a ham, a lifelong radio personality used to playing to an audience.

Wixted discounted the testimony of witnesses such as the Rabbi Gary Mazo and Cantor Anita Hockman, both of whom worked at Congregation M'Kor Shalom with the defendant, as being only their take on how the rabbi, a very introverted person, acted before and after the murder. "That's all it really boiled down to is their opinion," Wixted charged.

Finally, Wixted asked jurors to question: "Where is the money?" Explaining testimony by Rabbi Gary Mazo he saw the rabbi counting a large sum of cash at his desk in the weeks before the murder, the lawyer explained it away as repayment of a $5,000 loan. Wixted added that, other than that sum of cash, there were no bank records, no receipts, and no suspicious withdrawals that might tie his client to the nearly $14,000 Jenoff claimed he was paid by the rabbi.

This trial is being broadcast live by Court TV.