Trenton, NJ -Three Orthodox Jewish rabbis were convicted in New Jersey on Tuesday of conspiracy to commit kidnapping in a scheme to force men to grant divorces to their unhappy wives under Jewish law.
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Two of the rabbis were convicted as well of attempted kidnapping in federal court in Trenton, New Jersey, according to the office of one of the defense attorneys.
The case before U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson hinged in part on the testimony of an undercover FBI agent who posed as an Orthodox Jewish wife seeking a divorce.
Orthodox Jewish women cannot get a divorce unless their husbands consent through a document known as a “get.”
Prosecutors said the rabbis operated a ring that kidnapped or tried to kidnap men and tortured them with beatings and stun guns until they agreed to divorce.
Rabbis Mendel Epstein, 68, Jay Goldstein, 60, and Binyamin Stimler, 38, were found guilty of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, according to the office of lawyer Aidan O’Connor, who represented Goldstein.
Goldstein and Stimler also were convicted of attempted kidnapping.
Epstein’s son, David, 39, was charged but found not guilty of conspiracy and kidnapping.
The jury began deliberating on April 15.
The ring operated from 2009 to 2013, prosecutors said.
Although a wife can skip seeking a get and settle for a civil divorce, the separation without the husband’s consent can result in her being cast out of family and social circles.
Experts say such kidnapping schemes are responses to so-called get abuse, in which husbands demand an unreasonably large share of the couple’s communal property before granting the divorce.
The convictions come about three months after 56-year-old Rabbi Martin Wolmark pleaded guilty in the same case to conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce to commit extortion.
Sentencing is set for July 15. Epstein, Goldstein and Stimler face up to life in prison.
“The evidence established that Rabbi Stimler was not guilty and I’m shocked by the jury’s verdict.”
I’m not. A jury simply won’t let people who did obviously bad things (the latin term is Mallum in Se – google it) go because it doesn’t fit a legal technicality of the charges brought. They will hang something on him, unless they aren’t sure he actually did anything wrong.
A defense of “I was going to beat him, but didn’t drag him across some line” doesn’t work with juries.
Hashem yeracheim!
Cannot believe this a frum yid testified against these yidden and tge crazy thing is he did the same exact thing so they got him to sing
Does he have a din of moser? Will he still get the kovod and welcome in his lAkewood hangout Shul? Next to county line rd
There wasn’t much fund raising for these tzadikim to help their legal defense. Wanting to protect women gets less sympathy from communities than pedophiles facing jail time for abusing children in schools.
While I definitely do not support what these rabbis did, and think they deserve punishment, the US in general is the worst in the WORLD when it comes to incarceration rates and severity of punishment, while having one of the worst recidivism’s rates.
The US incarceration rate is worse than North Korea, China and Russia. When will people (and the frum community) start to protest the US prison state for the general population and not just when its Jews who are target of excessive punishment?
A true miscarriage of justice. Time for the Yidden come out of the bronze age with respect to Agunahs.
wait until someone you know needs such services all the big talkers
A lesson to be learned. Dina d’malchusa dina(the law of the country where you live is to be upheld) .These convicted people had more than enough opportunities to make an honest living in other endeavors and have a kosher livelihood Why put yourself in jeopardy and do something that is against the laws of your state and country?That you can make lots of money and own several homes and cars and live the good life?
Anyone in his right mind knows that they did it for money not out of sympathy for the women to get a Get. Just like the MOB nothing more. So when the boss goes to jail the next guy replaces him.
According to this article, some expert is quoted as saying.
Such kidnapping schemes are responses to so called “get abuse”
Which the husband’s demand an unreasonable amount of large share of the couples communal property.
OK let me quote and I quote from my own experience with mendel and his cohorts, it is jack asses like him who advise the women that she should demand more money then is legally binded!
If you sat down with 70% of those who are so called get refusers you’ll find out that majority of the men would be willing to either split 50/50 or if the women would stop asking for more money they would sign the get ASAP.
It is people like Mendel who created this mess, with the crazy demands, I have recordings of those demands and those close to me have heard it.
FYI bes din of america, the same people who gave out siruvs on the behest of Mendel against the so called get refusers, are still playing the siruv game, I’m expecting one against me any day because I wasn’t willing to come to their bes din who I don’t recognize nor did my ex apparently she changed her mind.
I explained to them that as long as she’s still demanding the amounts that have no legal standing I have no reason to sit down again again and again. Why go thru the pain.
Just my side of the story, I hope some of you will understand and for those that will scream give the get guess what you’ll never understand the consequences unless you’re in the situation yourself.
Stop the unnecessary demands, stop the pain
Hope Israel “gets” ready for them.
I don’t understand.
Conspiracy to commit kidnapping can be a Life sentence??
Somebody plz explain
Too many are too quick to condemn… Are you saying a fellow yid “deserves” to go to prison for life for this?! Aren’t we a people of rachamim?
It scares me to hear the way people speak in these comments…
nebach on us all –
this is tragic – I am totally out of this world B”H
but this is a terribly tragic story – fun alle zaytin.
this is not meant to be a judgement comment, ch’v.
I am not judging I am just so very saddened.
I cannot be joyful when I read an article like this.
its a tough situation. women in these situations have zero help and are subject to a bitter ordeal, and these merciless men who hold them captive. legal divorce is not enough halachically. yes, sometimes the woman has the insane demands, and in those instances I have no pity on her either.
Are all the kids born after such a get Mamzeirem? if yes I don’t know what punishment would be justified…..
Why isn’t anybody concerned that we have a FRUM yid testify against these people ?!
Although I do not condone violence, there are women who wasted their lives in limbo, not because they wanted money; they simply wanted out of the marriage and these evil men have the power to keep them in chains. I personally know a woman now close to 70 who has been separated for 40 years and the rasha never gave her a divorce. Then there are those who pay 50,000 for a get!!
In most cases it’s a pretty equal playing field. The women has control of the Kinderlech and the man controls the Get, which means that at one point the 2 sides must sit down and work things out like 2 adults otherwise they don’t get anywhere and everyone involved suffers especially the kinderlech.
However when one is dealing with a Chaya that doesn’t want to work things out normally but instead has one goal in mind which is to drag the poor women through the mud, that’s where we will have a very serious problem to deal with (and the Feds know abt this Jewish issue good n well)
These Rababnim delivered an awesome job in these type of unfortunate scenarios and deserved to get paid for their services just like when u sell the chamatz or fees one pays at a Din Torah etc, however they should’ve realized that we live in different times, we live in a world where everything is monitored and recorded and one cannot get away with these harsh tactics any longer, just like melamdim in Cheder know they can’t raise their hands on a child which was once the norm.
Hashem Yerachaim!
The US has the most excessive punishment in the world.
It is the only country in the WORLD that gives LIFE SENTENCES to children as young as 13.
Compare that to Europe where a (adult) murderer can receives as low as 15 years.
The US is WORST in the WORLD in the incarceration rate and length of prison sentences.
When will Americans stand up for justice for ALL Americans? (and not just when its your fellow co-coreligionist (Rubashkin for eg) who are in the firing line)? What type of culture puts up with such gross human rights violations??????
Country of the free? Liberty? The US is the WORST offender in the world in this regard.
Shame!
You know what they did was wrong since it was always the man being attacked, you won’t find one woman who they attacked like that, and we all know that some women are also guilty of exploiting their men during the divorce process.
Epstein and his gang did not help women without money only advising them on bringing false sexual abuse allegations against their husbands as a pressure tactic to obtain the Get. Epstein is heard on tape telling the FBI agent that if the husband gets a heart attack under torture they will just drag the body to his own car and place it there to look like he got a heart attack while driving. NO calling Hatzolah just outright goons who don’t care if the victim dies so how can anyone have Rachmonos on such callous people.
Furthermore, they made their victims drink vodka so if they walked into the police precinct to report their kidnapping they would not be taken serious because they would smell from alcohol. They switched NJ plates on their car with NY plates so witness description of plate and car would never match.
Unfortunately the women who think they were helped really got conned out of their money as all real Gedolim declared such illegal Gittin as Posul and the resultant children from the new marriage are at best Sofek Mamzeirim or at worst Vaday Mamzeirim and will only be able to marry other such Epstein produced Mamzeirim. In the end the obtained GET was hurtful to the women.
Nobody has the right to beat up another human being for any reason at all. Although the dinim of the Torah and Shulchan Orech and Rambam are eternal, very often these dinim are not put in place because of the world we live in. Mishlei says that spare the rod, spoil the child. Yet today if a rebbe or teacher in achool hits a child they will be fired. And parents will go to jail for child abuse. My heart goes out to the women held captive by abusive husbands. But beating them is not the way to do it.
How could he not talk to a husband at all and find out the “other”side of the story?
Klal Yisroel owes a great thank you to Rabbis Mendel Epstein, Jacob Goldstein, Martin Wolmark, and Stimler. Stop condemning these great wonderful rabbis!! How many people out there really care that according to halacha the agunas’ received a Get that was invalid and the agunas remained married to their respective husbands. Some of these poor desperate women paid great sums for Rabbi Epstein’s help in freeing them. Some of these women ran around and got people to collect great sums of money -tens of thousands of dollars- so they can pay Rabbis Epstein, Goldstein and Wollmark to convene their Beth Din and then kidnap and beat their husband. The point is it doesn’t matter that the Get the women received afterward was possul or invalid, as many people here complain about. Is the Shulchan Aruch and Poskim still alive today? Should we be concerned or care what it says there? What counts is that these married women were told by Rabbis Epstein and Wollmark (as well as other rabbis from around the world) that they may re-marry, and have indeed married another man and are living together very happily, and having babies. As members of Klal Yisroel we must now welcome those babies.
We must thank Rabbi Aryeh Ralbag for being brave and giving the court his testimony against these depraved criminal rabbis. Rabbi Aryeh Ralbag is a true baal teshuva. Although for many years Rabbi Aryeh Ralbag worked together with Rabbi Mendel Epstein, Rabbi Mordechai Wolmark and Jacob Goldstein, he did repent and do true teshuva gemura as soon as he learned that the FBI had arrested his cohorts in crime. Rabbi Aryeh Ralbag was so remorseful over his prior association with that band of thugs that he called his attorney and volunteered to testify against his former friends. Besides Rabbi Aryeh Ralbag seeking to do full teshuva, he also was able to receive a fringe benefit from the government; something known as immunity in exchange for his testimony. Surely, he is a true bal Teshuva and should be welcome within the Flatbush community as such. Thank you Rabbi Ralbag for being a great and brave man deserving much honor.
RALBAG WAS THE MOSER – he was a partner all along & then turned on them when asked to sing , no teshuva bubba meises – in his testimony said far more damaging than nec. w/o his damning words the top charge wouldve been dropped / the jury did NOT take wax seriously thats why epstien son got off because wax was lying thru his teeeth asid liten es hadin
This is the crux of the problem, Epstein and company were all too wiling to kidnap the so called ex husband, no due diligence no calling of her rav in Argentina no verifying any details, just me the money and i will beat him up, and that was why the jury came back with a guilty verdict, had he done a drop of research he would have see the whole thing was bogus and now the minyan in Otisville will get a few new mispallim and he can even be oleh shileshe.
FYI poster 44 poster, 41 was being sarcastic
A database must be setup to list the woman who have obtained illegal gittin so prospective dates will now she is still married.
B.T.W. there is nothing more horrible than a woman seeking revenge on her ex husband. She turns the husband into a fugitive and refuses to let him ever see his children ,with all kinds of excuses ” v’ani b’soch hagola”