FREEHOLD, N.J. — The case of a New Jersey rabbi charged with arranging his wife's murder will likely come down to the credibility of the prosecution's key witness, an admitted liar who claims the rabbi paid him $18,000 to carry out the slaying, lawyers on both sides told jurors during closing arguments Thursday.

Not unsurprisingly, the prosecutor told the jury that despite confessed hit man Len Jenoff's propensity to lie, in this case, he is telling the truth. Defense lawyer Michael Riley said Jenoff's numerous lies and conflicting stories are precisely the reason why they shouldn't believe him.

The arguments came a year and a day after a different jury deadlocked on whether prosecutor James Lynch had proved that Jenoff killed Carol Neulander, 52, to fulfill his end of a contract with her husband, Rabbi Fred Neulander. Jenoff, who now facing 30 years in prison for his role in the crime, testified that Neulander recruited him over several months to kill his wife and paid him $18,000 of the $30,000 he had promised. Jurors will be given instructions and likely begin deliberations Friday morning.

Carol Neulander was 52 when she was slain.

Though the prosecutor acknowledged that Jenoff told numerous lies and gave conflicting stories about the motivation for the brutal beating death, Lynch argued that Neulander should not get away with the murder of his wife because of Jenoff's grandiose claims of being a former secret government agent.

"Mr. Leonard Jenoff is not being held up to you as a model citizen. Mr. Jenoff, you have come to know, is exactly what I related to you in my opening remarks three and a half weeks ago," Lynch said. "He is a man who took money to kill someone. Nobody on behalf of the State of New Jersey is going to ask you to look at this man with admiration ... and respect. He is who he is."

Fred Neulander, 61, his mouth clamped shut and his gaze steely, appeared irritated at times as he listened to the prosecutor's lengthy closing argument.

Riley, the rabbi's lawyer, argued that the prosecution was trying to win a conviction by getting jurors to despise Neulander because of his personal behavior, notably, an affair with former Philadelphia radio personality Elaine Soncini. Riley argued that Neulander, who resigned as senior rabbi of Temple M'Kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, N.J., when the affair was publicly revealed, was not involved in the murder and that he should not be convicted simply because jurors might find him a "flawed" human being.

"Emotion is not evidence, ladies and gentlemen. If you are angry at Fred Neulander for the way he lived his private life and don't respect him ... you have every right to feel that way," Riley said. "He broke faith with the people who respected and loved him the most. He is a flawed man. He is an adulterer, but adulterer doesn't translate into murderer."

During his more than 90-minute closing, Riley attacked many of the prosecution's 25 witnesses as people who turned on Neulander for their own selfish reasons. He accused six people of lying, including Soncini, Jenoff, two attorneys, a limousine driver and 77-year-old Myron "Peppy" Levin.

Levin testified that weeks before the Nov. 1, 1994, murder, Neulander told him after a racquetball match that he hoped to come home one day and find his wife "dead on the floor." Levin, however, denied that Neulander made any such statement until police informed Levin that the rabbi had cheated him by selling him an inferior Torah for a greatly inflated price.

Noting that Jenoff claimed that Neulander recruited him for the hit earlier in 1994, Riley argued that it is not reasonable to believe that Neulander would approach Levin about having his wife killed when he had supposedly cut a deal already.

Riley spent approximately half of his closing argument on Jenoff, who confessed to killing Carol Neulander with the help of roommate Paul Daniels. Riley called Jenoff a "delusional, serial liar" and Daniels a "drug-addicted mental patient."

"What can you say about CIA Lenny that already hasn't been said?" Riley said, repeating the nickname he assigned to the prosecution's star witness during testimony. "He doesn't know where the truth ends and fantasy begins."

Lynch, whose closing followed Riley's, seemed to be forced on the defensive by what he told jurors was an "extraordinarily well-done" argument by the defense lawyer. Lynch said that if any witnesses were lying or testifying as the result of manipulation, it was the defense's witnesses.

Inmate David Beardsley, for example, testified for the defense that Jenoff told him after his arrest that the killing was an unintended result of a "robbery gone bad." But Beardsley also told jurors that Jenoff claimed that he was going to falsely implicate Neulander at the urging of a Camden County prosecutor who promised him a light sentence.

"Can you think of a more serious charge than that?" Lynch asked rhetorically, suggesting Beardsley made it up.

Lynch's closing was somewhat disjointed, but he hit upon something midway that Riley did not address at all in his remarks. Rebecca Neulander, Lynch reminded jurors, testified that she was on the telephone with her mother when Jenoff showed up at her home.

Carol Neulander referred to Jenoff, whose name she did not know, as the "bathroom guy" because he asked to use the restroom when he visited the house a week or two earlier on the guise of delivering a letter to the rabbi. The envelope was empty, making the "bathroom guy" the subject of more than one conversation between members of the Neulander family.

Before ending the last telephone conversation she ever had, Carol Neulander told her daughter just moments before she was killed that she was not concerned about the return of the "bathroom guy" because her husband told her he might be getting a delivery that night.

Neulander himself contradicted his daughter's testimony in a taped police statement, Lynch pointed out. Neulander, who did not take the witness stand as he did last year, told police the night of the killing that he did not know anything about any deliveries. He eventually conceded he was aware of the strange visit by the "bathroom guy."

The defense did not get a chance to rebut the prosecutor, who gets the last word because he endures the burden of proving his case. Riley, in his remarks earlier, insisted that the bottom line is that there is no evidence unless jurors believe the testimony of Jenoff.

"Len Jenoff is a user. He is a taker and a user ... and then he betrays [people] for his own purpose," Riley said. "He went to the Neulander home to rob and steal."

Becoming a bit more emotional as he wrapped up, Riley argued that Neulander had no motive to kill his wife and insisted the prosecution presented no believable proof that he commissioned the killing.

"He wasn't involved. There is no evidence of his guilt. None. Zero," Riley said. "Our standard is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, each and every element. To get there, you have to believe Len Jenoff. I say to you, you can't do it."

If convicted of first-degree murder, Neulander faces up to life prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. He is also charged with felony murder and conspiracy.

Jurors will be called on to reassemble in Judge Linda Baxter's courtroom for a penalty phase if they return a unanimous verdict of guilty on the first-degree murder charge.

The trial is being broadcast by Court TV.