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Saturday, October 12, 2013

Brooklyn rabbi tortured Jewish husbands with cattle prod to force divorce: feds 

Two rabbis plotted to kidnap Jewish husbands, torture them with electric cattle prods and force them to grant their desperate wives religious divorces, the feds charged Thursday.

Rabbi Mendel Epstein, 68, of Brooklyn and Rabbi Martin Wolmark, 55, of Monsey, Rockland County, were among 10 people arrested in the barbarous scheme with tentacles that ran all the way to the rabbinical court.

Epstein is accused of running an unholy crew that charged women trapped in marital limbo $70,000 to $100,000 to strong-arm their stubborn husbands into granting a Jewish divorce known as a “get,” a criminal complaint reveals.

Wolmark, who presides over the rabbinical court in Monsey, is charged with accepting money to make sure the court approved the gets.

“They didn’t do it out of religious conviction,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Gribko told a judge Thursday in a federal court hearing in Trenton, N.J. “They did it for money.”

Epstein was secretly recorded touting the persuasive tactics of his “tough guys” — including a muscle man known only as “Yaakov.”

Mr. Goldstein, a Midwood, Brooklyn man who wouldn't give his first name, says he was a victim of Rabbi Epstein.

Mr. Goldstein, a Midwood, Brooklyn man who wouldn't give his first name, says he was a victim of Rabbi Epstein.

“Basically what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him and then getting him to give the get,” Epstein was videotaped saying.

“I guarantee that if you’re in the van, you’d give a get to your wife,” he went on, according to the criminal complaint. “We take an electric cattle prod . . . you put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know.”

Epstein also said his gang “convinced” husbands to grant the get by putting plastic bags over their heads.

“We prefer not to leave a mark,” Epstein allegedly told the undercover agent. “Basically the reaction of the police is, if the guy does not have a mark on him then, uh, is there some Jewish crazy affair here. They don’t want to get involved.”

One man told the Daily News on Thursday that he had first-hand knowledge of the torture Epstein’s henchmen are accused of doling out. “They forced it (the get) on me,” said the Brooklyn man, who would only give his name as Mr. Goldstein. “They busted my fingers, busted my ribs. They kept me handcuffed.”
In Jewish culture, divorce is called a "get" and is granted with permission from the husband.

In Jewish culture, divorce is called a "get" and is granted with permission from the husband.
“These gets aren’t kosher. They force it,” said Goldstein. “It destroyed me.”

The gray-bearded rabbi was arrested Wednesday night when the FBI raided his Kensington home and locations in New Jersey and at the Orthodox Jewish enclave of Monsey.

Epstein, Wolmark and the others were ordered held without bail following their court appearance.
The crackdown followed an FBI sting launched in August — and featuring an undercover agent poising as a Jewish wife who wanted freedom from her failed marriage.

Last week, Epstein was told the husband would be lured to a warehouse in New Jersey. Epstein then scoped out the location with Yaakov, the complaint charges.

Rabbi Menel Epstein and three others were arrested after they allegedly plotted to kidnap Jewish husbands and torture them until they agreed to divorce their wives. Federal authorities say he charged up to $100,000 to "convince" the husbands.

Rabbi Menel Epstein and three others were arrested after they allegedly plotted to kidnap Jewish husbands and torture them until they agreed to divorce their wives. Federal authorities say he charged up to $100,000 to "convince" the husbands.

Under Orthodox Jewish law, only a man can grant his wife a get. Husbands have been known to hold their wives hostage to marriage out of spite or to leverage money.

Wives in limbo are called “agunah” — Hebrew for chained women — and are not allowed to remarry within the religion without first “getting a get.”

Epstein, a prominent divorce mediator, appeared in the 2011 documentary about Jewish divorce titled “Women Unchained.”

The criminal complaint doesn’t detail actual kidnappings or torture. But Epstein was recorded saying he and his crew pull off the abductions every year to a year and a half, court papers show.

Prosecutors said in court that they believe the group was involved in at least 20 kidnappings over the years.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/bklyn-rabbi-charged-100-000-torture-husbands-divorce-feds-article-1.1481722

Comments:
Epstein is no defender of agunos. He has ruined the lives of women as well. He does not discriminate. The community has known about him for years. No question, there will be revelations of all the money he took, and lists of so-called prominent Rabbis who participated with him in these schemes. The list is not limited to New York. I am not to judge whether our community could have banded together earlier and put a stop to this. Instead, it took the FBI to clean up this horrible mess with all the terrible publicity that came with it. There's definitely a message here.

 

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