CAMDEN, N.J. — A once popular New Jersey rabbi testifying in his own defense Tuesday admitted to being an adulterer but denied any involvement in his wife's 1994 slaying.

In what could be the biggest sermon of his life, the rabbi, Fred J. Neulander, accused of ordering the death of his wife of 28 years, spoke calmly and directly to an audience of 14 jurors as he took the stand in his capital murder trial.

"I was selfish and arrogant and I went beyond the bounds of marriage," Neulander testified. "I betrayed Carol, I betrayed my family, I betrayed my synagogue, I betrayed my community, I betrayed my profession — but divorce was never an issue."

Murder was not an option either, testified the 60-year-old father of three who is accused of offering two hitmen, Len Jenoff, 56, and Paul Michael Daniels, 27, $30,000 to kill his wife, Carol Neulander, and disguise the slaying as a robbery. The rabbi came home from his Cherry Hill synagogue on Nov. 1, 1994 to find his wife bludgeoned to death on the living room floor.

The state contends that Neulander wanted to break from his wife to continue an affair with a Philadelphia radio host, and that the rabbi believed a divorce would cost him his rabbinical post. Camden County First Assistant Prosecutor James Lynch has said he intends to seek the death penalty if the rabbi is convicted.

Neulander's defense lawyers, who began making their case Monday with a total of 11 witnesses, claim that hitman Len Jenoff is a habitual liar who cooked up the murder conspiracy to cover up his robbery attempt gone wrong.

Declaring his innocence

Before court convened Tuesday, Neulander sat at his table paging through a letter he had written in his trademark green ink to Elaine Soncini after his wife was murdered, in which he eloquently professed his innocence and asked his lover to stay by his side. Soncini testified early in the trial that she told Neulander she would end their two-year affair if he didn't become a single man by the end of 1994.

Carol Neulander was killed on Nov. 1, 1994.

During his time on the stand Tuesday, the rabbi gradually came to face the jury, gesturing to them as though the 14 members seated to his left were a congregation.

Defense lawyer Dennis Wixted elicited a denial of the murder charges early from his client, couching two important questions in the midst of a line of questioning concerning Neulander's rabbinical education.

"Are you in any way responsible for Carol's death?" asked Wixted. "No I am not," Neulander replied calmly.

"Mr. Neulander, did you ask Len Jenoff to kill Carol so that you could marry Elaine Soncini or for any other reason?" "No I did not."

The rabbi's testimony was often calm, and in a hushed, but steady, voice, he described coming home to find his wife dead on the night of the murder. "I went over to her and looked at her and she wasn't breathing," he testified. "There was an enormous amount of blood. I didn't touch her, I was frightened, I didn't know what to do. I was so devastated by the amount of blood and the wounds on her. Her face was pale. I assumed the worst and I didn't know what to do and I called 911."

His immediate concern, Neulander testified, was his son, Matthew, who was an emergency medical technician in the area and was on duty that night. "Your mind just jumps when there's a crisis of this magnitude," he testified. "It dawned on me very quickly 'Oh my God, he could be the one that's taking this call,'" he continued, his voice cracking slightly.

During the defendant's testimony about his wife's murder, one juror wiped her nose with a Kleenex while another looked at Neulander with furrowed brow. A number of jurors turned to Rebecca Neulander, Neulander's only daughter, who continued crying into a break in her father's testimony.

Separate lives

Earlier, Neulander testified that he and his wife grew apart because of the success they had found in their professional lives. "We began to have separate focuses, and the ... separation was felt. We had very very infrequent sexual congress of any sort. And that distance was clear to us, nothing we were uncomfortable with and we had to live with it."

So, he and his wife, the rabbi testified, decided to have an open relationship.

"However wrong it was, we made the decision if there were needs that could not be fulfilled inside the marriage then we would go outside the marriage," Neulander testified. "It was wrong, it is wrong, it will be wrong."

One of the relationships the rabbi pursued was with Elaine Soncini. But no matter how attached he became to Soncini, he testified, Neulander never wanted to marry her.

Divorce from his wife, Neulander told the jury, was simply never an option. "My situation with Carol was stable, great family, great children, we had the synagogue, she had her business, we had a life with friends but there was no need for me, in the crudest sense, the prosecutor was right — I was selfish and arrogant and I went beyond the bounds of marriage, I betrayed Carol, I betrayed my family, I betrayed my synagogue, I betrayed my community, I betrayed my profession, but divorce was never an issue."

He also denied giving Soncini a pin that the former broadcaster said the rabbi gave her, saying it was his mother's and one of his most prized possessions.

On cross-examination, the defendant admitted that his career "probably would have been effectively over" if he had admitted in 1994 that he was having extramarital affairs. The rabbi eventually left the congregation M'Kor Shalom in February 1995 as speculation grew concerning his role in the murder. He was asked to resign his rabbinical post soon thereafter.

In 1994, faced with Soncini's ultimatum, Neulander testified that he lied to his lover to keep the relationship going. In one answering machine message that Lynch played, Neulander said in a mellifluous voice, "I can't find the words to tell you how much I love you. I need you and I love you."

When faced with the green-inked letter that he spent half an hour reviewing this morning, however, Neulander told the jury that he later came to love Soncini.

"Elaine, what you and I have ... it's a gift God permits so infrequently and I treasure it without adequate measure or thanks," the prosecutor read from the January 4, 1995, correspondence.

"You invoked the name of God on your relationship, didn't you sir?" bellowed Lynch.

"Yes," Neulander said timidly.

Denials or 'don't recalls' on cross

The rabbi discounted a number of statements made by his son, Matthew, who testified last week on behalf of the state. He denied ever having discussed divorce with his wife in a fight which Matthew Neulander testified occurred two days before his mother's death, and denied threatening that he would financially cut off his son if he didn't use an attorney that he suggested.

"I just knew that that was a bill that I was uncomfortable paying," Neulander testified.

On direct examination, the rabbi addressed testimony by Matthew, and the sister of his slain wife, among others, that he did not appear to be deeply saddened by his wife's death. "I usually have a private, quiet experience of crying and then gather it together," Neulander explained. "I try to hold it in. My father trained me you don't bother other people with your problems. For right or wrong ... a man just holds it in and doesn't burden other people."

Then on cross, the defendant seemed almost amused at Lynch's skeptical needling, and fell into a pattern of claiming that he could not deny a statement but, at the same time, could not recall it.

He told the jury that he lied during his first interview with the police the morning after his wife's murder because he wanted to hide his relationship with Soncini. "So your personal interests were more important than solving the murder of your wife?" Lynch challenged the rabbi.

"Yes," Neulander said.

Neulander said also denied that he told Soncini "trust me, we'll be together by your birthday."

Lynch played a recording of the 911 call Neulander made upon finding his wife dead in their Cherry Hill living room to challenge the rabbi for never once checking to see if his wife was okay. The rabbi testified that he assumed his wife was dead upon seeing her.

Neulander also refuted claims made in the first two weeks of the trial by Len Jenoff. The rabbi denied telling Jenoff that killing his wife would be forgivable because she was an enemy of Israel, that he could get the private investigator a job with the Israeli secret service and that he wanted Jenoff to help him contact nuclear arms salesmen.

And after the murder, testified Neulander, he didn't recall seeing Jenoff in the receiving line of his wife's funeral, let alone handing him a package later that day with the second and last bulk payment of cash for the contract murder.

When asked why he offered to marry the alleged hitman in his home, delivering vows only feet from where his wife was murdered, Neulander began to proselytize, describing a parable from the bible in which a group of sages suggest that a wedding procession, not a funeral procession, should pass through a crossroads first because it celebrates life.

"I wanted to ensure that Carol be remembered in life," Neulander testified, "and therefore I filled that house with all kinds of life-enhancing things."

Neulander was the state's fourteenth witness in this, the tenth day of the trial. He will resume cross examination tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. ET.