Rabbis accused in kidnapping scheme

Saturday, October 12, 2013

In Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, Mendel Epstein made a name for himself as the rabbi to see for women struggling to divorce their husbands. Among the Orthodox, a divorce requires the husband’s permission, known as a “get,” and tales abound of women whose husbands refuse to consent.

While it’s common for rabbis to take drastic action, such as barring a defiant husband from synagogue life, Epstein, 68, took matters much further, according to the authorities.

For hefty fees, he orchestrated the kidnapping and torture of reluctant husbands, charging their wives as much as $10,000 for a rabbinical decree permitting violence and $50,000 to hire others to carry out the deed, according to federal charges unsealed Thursday morning.

Epstein, along with another rabbi, Martin Wolmark, who is the head of a yeshiva, as well as several men on what the authorities called the “kidnap team,” appeared in U.S. District Court in Trenton, N.J., after a sting operation in which an undercover federal agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish woman soliciting Epstein’s services.

Paul Fishman, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said that investigators have “uncovered evidence” of about 24 victims. Many are men from Brooklyn who were taken to New Jersey as part of the kidnappings.

In court, the lead prosecutor in the case, R. Joseph Gribko, explained how the abductions were carried out. “They beat them up, tied them up, shocked them with Tasers and stun guns until they got what they want,” Gribko, an assistant U.S. attorney, said.

Gribko said the defendants had been motivated by money, not faith. “It’s not about religion,” Gribko told the court. “These defendants are conspiring in what is a criminal enterprise for money.”

Accounts of such kidnappings have percolated through the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn for years. In 1996, for instance, the Central Rabbinical Congress, a council in Williamsburg, issued a statement denouncing the rogue men who subjected husbands to such beatings, according to a news report.

On Thursday, the 10 defendants were denied bail after appearing in court in Trenton on the kidnapping conspiracy charges. Juda J. Epstein, the lawyer for Epstein, declined to comment.

Religion, Pages 13 on 10/12/2013