CAMDEN, N.J. — A man who confessed to killing the wife of a prominent New Jersey rabbi testified Thursday that the religious leader offered him $30,000 to carry out the killing.

"It was the darkest day of my life," said Leonard Jenoff, 56, who pleaded guilty to beating Carol Neulander over the head with a metal rod until she lay choking to death on the floor of her Cherry Hill, N.J., living room.

Fred Neulander, 60, who founded and ran one of the most successful synagogues in New Jersey, is charged with capital murder for ordering the Nov. 1, 1994, slaying. Assistant First Prosecutor James Lynch has said he intends to seek the death penalty if Neulander is convicted.

Prosecutors allege Neulander wanted to start a new life with his mistress of two years, a popular Philadelphia radio jockey named Elaine Soncini, who threatened to leave him if he remained a married man at the end of 1994.

Neulander's lawyers claim the rabbi had nothing to do with his wife's murder, that it could have been a robbery, and that Jenoff, the key witness for the state, is delusional and prone to cloak-and-dagger flights of fancy.

Dressed in the pumpkin orange jumpsuit of the Camden County Correctional Center, Jenoff told the jury about how the rabbi gained his trust and friendship, and then concocted an elaborate scheme to turn him against Carol Neulander by trying to convince him that she was threatening the Jewish communities in New Jersey's M'Kor Shalom synagogue, and even in Israel.

Getting to know you

It was late June 1993 when the rabbi first befriended Jenoff, still working to right himself after a stretch of alcoholism drove away his wife and child, and left him jobless, broke and living at a halfway home in New Jersey.

At their first meeting, a three-hour discussion in Neulander's M'Kor Shalom office, Jenoff said he was overwhelmed by how much the rabbi seemed to care for his well-being. "He made me feel as if I had known him for 20 years," he told the jury.

After their second meeting two weeks later, in which the two men strolled behind the synagogue and shared a pack of cigarettes, Neulander invited Jenoff to come to the Friday services. Again, Jenoff felt fortunate. "He was becoming my best friend," Jenoff said. "I never had a rabbi that I could say was my rabbi, and that meant a lot to me."

According to Jenoff, their friendship continued to burgeon. The two men began calling each other by their first names in private. Neulander offered to help Jenoff learn Hebrew to get the bar mitzvah he never had as a young boy. The rabbi paid him small kindnesses. In 1994, for example, Jenoff casually mentioned a parking ticket, and Neulander later sent him a $100 bill and a note that read, "Len, watch where you park next time."

As their relationship grew, Jenoff began to tell the rabbi more about his personal life. Not all of it was true. "I started telling him that I did a lot of illegal and dirty things for the CIA, that I had taken lives," Jenoff said, mentioning the Iran-Contra affair in particular. "I'm still ashamed of myself, and I wanted to impress the man," Jenoff admitted.

According to Jenoff, Neulander seemed interested in his CIA claim, and said he knew people with the Israeli secret service, the Mossad. Neulander told him the Mossad even had offices in Philadelphia.

Jenoff was fascinated.

Would you kill for Israel?

The Mossad, Jenoff testified, was Neulander's entry into his eventual request to kill his wife. One day, as the two walked by the incinerator at the rear of the synagogue, the rabbi suddenly stopped.

"What do you think about Israel?" he asked Jenoff.

"Well, I'm a Jew, I love Israel," Jenoff replied.

Grabbing his charge's elbow, Neulander continued, "Would you kill for the state of Israel?"

"I looked at him and said, 'Yes I would,'" Jenoff said.

Later, as the men said their goodbyes, Jenoff thanked the rabbi and said he hoped to someday be able to do something for him in return.

"Well, maybe you can do something for me someday," Neulander replied, according to Jenoff.

A week or two later, the rabbi went one step further, Jenoff said. "He started telling me that there were enemies of the state of Israel right here in Cherry Hill," Jenoff said. "That things should have to be done about that. They should be removed."

"What do you mean they should be removed?" Jenoff said he asked. "He looked at me and said. 'I mean kill. Would you kill for the state of Israel?'"

Jenoff was distraught. "I felt sick to my stomach," he testified. "I felt like he was calling my bluff ... I had told all these tough-guy lies."

Neulander's characterization of "the person" morphed into someone in Cherry Hill, and then into a woman in Cherry Hill. "There's a woman in Cherry Hill that could destroy a lot of people and a lot of Jews," Neulander said, according to Jenoff. "Am I talking to the right man?"

"I hesitated, I was afraid to say no, and I said 'yes, rabbi,'" Jenoff testified.

Let's go for a ride

In early summer 1994, Neulander finally identified his target. "Lets go for a ride," he said. The two men hopped into the rabbi's Acura, left the synagogue and wound their way into the Neulanders' docile Cherry Hill neighborhood. According to Jenoff, Neulander pulled in front of 204 Highgate Lane and gestured at his white, two-story house. "The woman that you said you would kill is my wife," he said.

Jenoff pressed for details, he told the jury. Was Neulander's wife really an enemy of Israel? Why did he want her dead? But Neulander wouldn't say more. "He said I'm either the man for the job or I'm not the man for the job," Jenoff testified. "He said ... 'I promise you $30,000 if you kill my wife.'"

Despite doubts, Jenoff said yes.

"It was the darkest day of my life," he explained to the rapt jury. "I killed his wife for $30,000 dollars."

"At the time you did that, did you believe then that Mrs. Neulander was an enemy of Israel?" prosecutor Lynch asked.

"Once he told me it was his wife, I started not believing it was an enemy of Israel," Jenoff replied.

"Mr. Jenoff, you weren't doing this for honor ... you were killing someone for money, isn't that right?"

"Yes sir, I was," Jenoff said.

During this portion of the testimony, members of the jury turned their heads as if at a tennis match, from Jenoff suddenly to Neulander, who was rocking slowly in his chair, his brow furrowed.

When, where and how?

At their next meeting one week later, the two men began to flesh out the details of the murder plot, Jenoff testified. Jenoff wanted another person to help with the killing (he eventually recruited his roommate, Paul Daniels, who has also confessed to his role in the crime), but Neulander said he wouldn't increase the $30,000 payment.

The men also discussed means. One suggestion was carrying out the hit as Neulander and his wife came out of a Broadway show. Neulander worried about his own safety, though, and the two men discarded the idea.

Another plan was for Jenoff to stalk Carol Neulander on one of the trips she often took with relatives to the Short Hills Mall. Jenoff told the jury that when he asked what to do if the rabbi's wife wasn't alone, the rabbi said, "Just shoot both of them," which prompted Neulander to shake his head in the courtroom.

The third method discussed was a drive-by shooting.

None of these ideas panned out, however, and the rabbi kept saying he wanted it done in his house, on Tuesday night, when he said he'd have the best alibi, and when his son Matthew would be out of the house.

Matthew Neulander testified earlier Thursday that his parents fought about the future of their marriage only two days before the murder.

The trial, which is being broadcast live by Court TV, continues with more direct testimony by Jenoff on Friday morning at 9:00 a.m. ET.