CRIME : Abducted Child Returned Safely
The subject was Alexander Gelman, 40, a Soviet emigre and mathematics lecturer at UC Irvine.
“This is a guy who was basically distraught,” said a close friend. “The guy was a little off. We were as worried about him as about the child. . . .”
The child was the 2-year-old son of Gelman’s rabbi, Aron D. Berkowitz, leader of the Orthodox Chabad of West Orange County. According to police, Gelman went to the Berkowitz home in Westminster, pushed aside a housekeeper and walked off with the boy, Zalman.
The next day, Gelman was involved in a minor traffic accident in Tijuana, Baja California, and was arrested. Zalman, apparently unharmed, was returned home.
Gelman reportedly told police he had become dizzy, went to a doctor who told him he had high blood pressure and on the way home inexplicably wound up at the Berkowitz house. He reportedly told Tijuana authorities he did not remember driving to that city.
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