Fugitive extradited from Israel to Pittsburgh stands trial on rape charges

An Israeli man who fled criminal charges that he raped a teenage girl at a Dormont tanning salon in 2004 is standing trial this week.

Moshe Journo, 55, was extradited back to the United States from Israel in 2019 and pleaded guilty in December of that year to aggravated indecent assault, sexual assault, statutory sexual assault and indecent assault.

But, Journo withdrew his plea four months later — just days before he was to be sentenced.

The case was then scheduled for trial in November, but almost immediately ended in a mistrial when Journo’s defense attorney, Joseph E. Hudak, told the jury in his opening statement that his client had previously pleaded guilty.

The case was rescheduled again, and opening statements began Thursday morning before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Bruce Beemer.

It is expected to continue into next week.

Deputy District Attorney Jan Necessary walked the jury through what happened in Journo’s store, Mo Wear, on Sept. 6, 2004, and then what happened in the 15 years that followed.

“Some people might call it a cold case,” Necessary said.

But that’s not the case for the alleged victim, she continued.

“She’s had to live with what happened for the last 16-1/2 years.”

The Trib does not name alleged victims of sexual assault.

The teen was with her friend in Dormont that Labor Day when they stopped at Journo’s store on Potomac Avenue, according to Necessary.

The prosecutor said that Journo talked to the girls and at one point commented on the alleged victim’s sport shorts — which had a built-in liner — and noted she wasn’t wearing underwear.

He then commented on her tan and offered for the girls to use the tanning salon at the store next door, Necessary said.

Although the friend went into the first room, Journo told the alleged victim not to use the second room, but to go to the third one.

There, the prosecutor said, Journo rubbed lotion on her back and left for a short time.

The girl tried to lock the door, Necessary said, but she couldn’t. She then got undressed, and a short time later, Journo returned.

First he offered to rub lotion on the girl’s legs, and then started to touch her sexually.

“She was shocked,” Necessary said. “She didn’t know what to do.”

Then, she continued, Journo raped the girl — pushing her up against the tanning bed.

“[She] was petrified,” Necessary said.

When the alleged victim testified Thursday afternoon, she told the jury she didn’t scream, that she couldn’t because she was frozen.

She said that as Journo left the tanning room afterward, he put his finger to her lips and said, “‘You don’t tell nobody about this.’”

The alleged victim testified that she stayed in the tanning room — and tanned.

“I was on automatic,” she said.

But when she exited the room, she testified that she found her friend and told her they had to leave immediately.

As they left, the alleged victim testified, Journo put his arm around her and said, “I was his girlfriend now.”

They told the friend’s mom, who called the alleged victim’s mom, and the Dormont police were contacted.

The young woman was taken to St. Clair Hospital for a sexual assault exam.

She called it “excruciatingly painful.”

Journo was arrested the next day, Necessary said, but was able to post a $25,000 straight bond and was released from custody.

He never turned over his Israeli passport, and when he was supposed to show up for court, he did not, she continued.

Eventually, the authorities tracked him to Israel. He was taken into custody there in 2017 and extradited to the United States in 2019.

In describing the evidence to the jury, Necessary noted that testing methods have improved in the intervening years, and when the alleged victim’s white shorts were sent to the crime lab, analysts found a semen stain inside them.

“It sat in the evidence room for 15 years,” she said.

It matched Journo, the prosecutor said, and the chance of it matching another person is 1 in 1.64 sextillion.

But in his opening statement, Hudak emphasized to the jury that no male DNA was collected off of the alleged victim during the hospital examination, yet it was found on her shorts 15 years later.

He told the jurors that they must “think deeply” about how that could have happened.

Hudak discredited the police investigation into the alleged assault, saying that there was no crime scene analysis and that the officers didn’t even question the teen about what happened and instead just listened to her story.

“They don’t even have a picture of the inside of the store to show to you,” he said. “These are certainly people that will push this charge basically blindly.”

Hudak also told the jury about a federal civil lawsuit the woman filed against Journo in February 2019.

“The alleged victim in this case — the alleged victim — wants money,” he said. “What they’re looking for is big money. We’re going to show you that the alleged victim in this case has a motive to fabricate these allegations.

“We have both a motive and an opportunity.”

But during her testimony, the woman said she filed the lawsuit to protect her rights, because she “did not trust the criminal justice process whatsoever.

“I was just exercising my rights to get some closure for myself.”