Brooklyn, NY – Brothers Plead Guilty To Violently Extort ‘Get’ From Reluctant Husband, Face 20 Years In Prison

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    Brooklyn, NY – A pair of Brooklyn brothers have admitted on consecutive days to crossing state lines as part of a plan to violently coerce an unwilling husband to grant his wife a religious divorce, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

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    Avrohom Goldstein, 34, pleaded guilty today to an information charging him with traveling in interstate commerce to commit extortion. Moshe Goldstein, 31, entered his guilty plea March 10, 2014, to the same charge. Both brothers entered their guilty pleas before U.S. District Judge Freda L. Wolfson in Trenton federal court.

    According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

    On Oct. 9, 2013, Moshe Goldstein, Avrohom Goldstein and a group of conspirators – including David Hellman, 31, their father, Jay Goldstein, 59, Simcha Bulmash, 30, Ariel Potash, 40, Binyamin Stimler, 38, and Sholom Shuchat, 29 – traveled from New York to a warehouse in Edison, N.J., with the intent of forcing a Jewish husband to give his wife a “get,” a document which, according to Jewish Law, must be presented by a husband to his wife to effect their divorce.

    During their guilty plea proceedings, Moshe and Avrohom admitted that when they arrived at the warehouse, the group met with an individual who, unbeknownst to them, was an undercover FBI agent posing as the “husband’s” brother in law. The brothers admitted that they discussed a plan and prepared to confine, restrain and threaten the victim.

    The group was then arrested by a team of FBI agents and charged by criminal complaint – along with rabbis Mendel Epstein, 68, and Martin Wolmark, 55 – in connection with the scheme. All of the defendants reside in Brooklyn, except Potash and Wolmark, who live in Monsey, N.Y.

    Hellman, the first defendant to plead guilty, admitted the same conduct in Trenton federal court on March 6, 2014; the charges against the alleged conspirators remain pending.

    Moshe and Avrohom Goldstein also admitted that on Aug. 22, 2011, they and others went to a residence in Brooklyn where they restrained, assaulted and injured a man in an attempt to extort a divorce from him. That conduct will be considered by the court during sentencing, currently scheduled for June 16, 2014, for Moshe Goldstein and June 20, 2014, for Avrohom Goldstein. Each brother is bailed on a $500,000 bond and subject to GPS monitoring.

    The brothers each face a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.


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    56 Comments
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    ChareidiMan
    ChareidiMan
    10 years ago

    i wish i can say i feel bad for them but i don’t! big boys throwing around their muscles on other helpless people are all of a sudden not so big, not so strong and mostly not so free.

    Its all good!

    10 years ago

    The solution is to bring back the old practice of pilegesh. This way no woman needs a get and no man could be ripped off in the secular divorce court of his home and business. Marriage can be a life and death situation in todays crazy world.

    TexasJew
    TexasJew
    10 years ago

    They should all be sentenced to one year in jail at most. The big bosses to no more than 3. What they did was wrong, but on a scale of 1-10 it’s minimal.
    Give them community service.

    Azoiy
    Azoiy
    10 years ago

    I wonder whether Mr ChareidiMan would feel the same if the person trying to get the “get” was none other than his daughter. Perhaps she was waiting already 10 years with no end in sight, and the bum husnband was still requiring $100,000 or more to give the “get”.
    It may be very illegal what they did, but it may have come from Yiddishe “rachmonus” also.

    ohvei
    ohvei
    10 years ago

    Who will help now my close friend that is A “Aguneh” for the past 10 years.
    I wish this people would do that to him.
    Now she sits and cries through her nights.
    Her pain is not something I could imagine, now that we don’t have this pepole, only hashem could take care of the situation.
    May god help her.

    bahby
    bahby
    10 years ago

    How does one plead guilty to an information? Is that even English?

    BHBSD
    BHBSD
    10 years ago

    If you have compassion on an “achzor” , then you are also an “achzor”. These people were trying to free women from captivity

    10 years ago

    Great news. When does the fundraising begin?

    heyward
    heyward
    10 years ago

    I wish you guys would wake up. What about these women who take there husbands for every penny they owe. The house. The car. they put a lean on there business account. they would not allow him to see his own children. and you want your husband to give you a divorce…. WHY WHY WHY, Then the hero Mendel Shygatz Epstein comes with a cattle prong. to finish the job. MENDEL it serves you right go to jail for the rest of your life. Get a taste of your own medicine.

    Anyone
    Anyone
    10 years ago

    The problem is that we do not listen or hear both sides of the story. YES we all know there are MEN who want Hugs $’s for a divorce, we also know there are women who ask HUGE $’s in order to accept the divorce (GET), or after they make recieve their “Get” they run into court to sue the Husband.

    Then there are those women who refuse to show the kids to their husbands (and there are many of them) so the Husband withholds his “Get” and the woman CRIES “Crocodile tears” AGUNAH!!!!! REALLY?????

    There are 3 sides to each story, He said, She said and the Truth.

    Yosef ben Chaim

    Barsechel
    Barsechel
    10 years ago

    So that no more husbands refuse a get the prenup should be a pre condition to every marriage

    10 years ago

    The melancholy truth is that any get extorted in this fashion is possul and worse than worthless, as the “liberated” wife may go on to produce mamzerim.

    CTJEW
    CTJEW
    10 years ago

    This attorney while not condoning the actions of the gang of thugs, wonders if a good criminal defense attorney could have beat this with an entrapment defense? I don’t have enough of the facts to know.

    yaakov doe
    Member
    yaakov doe
    10 years ago

    For those of you who don’t know Moshe and Avrohom Goldstein or their father Yaakov, these are among the least intimidating people I know. They are not the type of people to beat up anyone, and I can’t imagine anyone being intimidated by them.

    jakyw
    jakyw
    10 years ago

    There must be a halachic solution to this get situation. A takanah could be done if a Gadol Hador has the will and the chochmah like Rabeinu Gershom who helped so many women by abolishing polygamy.

    ayoyo
    ayoyo
    10 years ago

    The main thing is that the rabbi told his people that it is allowed to force the husband to give a get ,and the listened to him ,not to the law of the land.

    yosher
    yosher
    10 years ago

    Rabbanim generally do very little to help Agunahs; they charge for their Bais Din time as if they were ivy league lawyers and never throw recalcitrant husbands out of Shul, deny them Aliyah’s etc. Now they began working like the mob to beat husbands……$50,000.00 ! and they work for any side that pays their price. I guess Mechiras Chometz just isn’t enough. No one should have respect for these Shkotzim parading as Rabbonim.

    hashomer
    hashomer
    10 years ago

    The Get-Agunah situation is a self created problem that has been ignored by the gedolim, to the detriment of all yiddishkeit. Why no one can step up and make a new, sensible ruling on this issue, gives ammunition to all who say Torah Judaism is truely anti-women, leading young people to go OTD. Yes, I’m talking about OUR ladies, daughters, wives…

    Benny
    Benny
    10 years ago

    All of you people, are throwing rocks on each other.
    Each case is different and has to be paskened by a competent Dayon.
    And if he decides that the get can be given even with a duress – that’s a Halochah!
    And somebody is got to do it.
    And there is nothing wrong with taking money, all of you do take at your work, why can’t the Rov get paid? Or those who implement the psak.
    O, I forgot, only you are allowed to get paid!

    Bukharian
    Bukharian
    10 years ago

    this is ashkanaz problem.

    sighber
    sighber
    10 years ago

    Rambam (Hilchos Geirushin 2:20) writes that one may use force to obtain a man’s consent to divorce his wife. If Torah says that a divorce must have be given with true genuine consent, how can the Rambam justify using force in this situation? If a person’s evil inclination presses him to negate the observance of a mitzvah or to commit a transgression, and he was beaten until he performed the action he was obligated to perform, or he dissociated himself from the forbidden action, he is not considered to have been forced against his will. On the contrary, it is he himself who is forcing his own conduct to become debased proper.With regard to this person who [outwardly] refuses to divorce – he wants to be part of the Jewish people, and he wants to perform all the mitzvot and eschew all the transgressall the mitzvot and eschew all the transgressions; it is only his evil inclination that presses him to do otherwise. Therefore, when he is beaten until his evil inclination has been weakened, and he consents, he is considered to have performed the divorce willfully. When the law does not require him to divorce his wife, and he is compelled to divorce her, the get is not valid.

    Sol-Sol
    Sol-Sol
    10 years ago

    It’s time we start smelling the coffee here. From Dweck’s Jewish blood hunt to Metzitza Bepeh and now forced Gittin.

    I know of 2 cases where R’ Epstien helped a wife with her get where the husband was simply acting like an impossible deadbeat for far too long and he didn’t make any money even after many many hours and days that went into obtaining the get where he was clearly entitled to get paid for his time efforts and a job & service well done. The Feds know good and well that us Yidden have this issue on our hands and also know good and well that there are currently no laws for Get refusal cases (like there is in EY).

    Now the Feds are cutting some plea deals with each one, like we didn’t know it was coming, as if any1 in their right mind thought it would go to trial.
    Dweck was a gr8 fishing rod for them (they didn’t have to ask him twice for his services and he didn’t even ask them to cover the cost of the bait) if his great grand mother wasn’t dead he would have hand delivered her to Trenton as well.

    It’s sad to say, but we are under attack in more ways than one.

    10 years ago

    There is something in many of the comments here that I just don’t get. There are those who say that the woman are at fault….they milk their husband’s for all their worth, file for large sums of child support, don’t let the husband see the kids. Now let’s put aside the very small percentage of woman that really are viscous & vengeful for no reason other then bad midos. Do you really think a woman would do all that if the husband would nicely give a get once it is obvious that the marriage is not viable? The husband uses the get as his way of having control & power, & thereby forces the wife to fight back with what she has at her diaposal. There are courts and batei din where things like custody, property & money matters can be disscussed & decided. The man has the ability to fight for all the aforementioned things just like the wife can. The problem is when the guy uses the get as a blackmailing device. By doing that, all hell is let loose and then he deserves all that comes as a result. No woman deserves that her chance for freedom should come with a price tag. The more pple will realize that a get & an agreement should not be intertwined, the whole aguna sit. will be resolved.

    pushkin
    pushkin
    10 years ago

    Reply to Bucharian. Wake up and smell some bucharian coffee.if you want to make a stupid comments at least don’t tell us where you’re from.

    10 years ago

    If I were the sentencing judge, I would show these defendants the same mercy, which they were going to show the potential victim. All of them must receive no less than 15 years behind bars. Case closed!

    yonasonw
    Member
    yonasonw
    10 years ago

    The Big Picture – so many of you are no better than Muslim rashoim who think religion is a basis for abusive abhorent behavior – to such chareidishe schkotsim contemporary legal and social behavioral norms are just too “mo-dern,” right. So go back to Europe and regress to the days when a town Rav could order a new rebbe to be tarred and feathered because he taught the Rambam…or spit on Centrist women and call them whores. B”H you Yiddishe Taliban are a minority…a loud and vulgar minority…but just a minority.

    10 years ago

    Reply to kugelfresser #49 :
    Thank you for calling me naive. I would definitely rather be called that then a lot of other things.
    I too have been involved in many divorce cases. The fact that you so strongly stress in a negative connotation that in every case that you know of the woman is advised by the toen or lawyer to “fight for her rights” is really the crux of the problem. What do you want the woman do do? Stand back and not get anything? She shouldn’t fight for her children? She shouldn’t fight for child support? She shouldn’t fight for her share of a mutual house or assets? A woman has no rights? Just because the marriage is no longer viable she should be left on the streets with nothing? Why do you think that the man has the right to “fight for his rights” and when a woman does the same, it’s wrong? And there are men that incite their children against their mothers? There are no men who are loaded with money and won’t pay alimony or even worse, child support? Wake up and smell the coffee young man. Every person in the world has the right to “fight for their rights”. That’s why we have a court system and batei din. No person has the right to withhold a get from their wife. That is total coercion and blackmail. And I am one hundred percent sure that in most cases if the wife would know that her husband will give her a get the “fight for her rights” would look a lot different. Aside from the fact that a woman has a right to child support and some mutual assets aquired when they were married, a big part of the fight is to create a reason for the husband to want to give a get. If the husband refuses to give a get and the wife has nothing in her hands to negotiate with, how in the world will she ever be set free. So the minute all these men will stood associating a get with money/power/revenge, the women will have a lot less to “fight for their rights”. If I have a business argument or a conflict with a friend on many matters what do I do? Go to court or beis din. Each side has the right to bring up their side of the story and a decision is made. Dame here with a divorced. There are children, a house, assets, a business… All that can and should be brought up in court/beis din and a decision will be reached. Why does the giving of the get have to be part of it? Why does the woman have to give up part of her rights in order to receive her get? .