Brooklyn rabbi tortured Jewish husbands with cattle prod to force divorce: feds
Desperate wives paid Rabbi Mendel Epstein up to $100,000 to 'convince' their husbands to divorce them, according to sources and court papers.
Comments (83)By Oren Yaniv / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Thursday, October 10, 2013, 12:40 PM
Updated: Friday, October 11, 2013, 12:50 AM
Rabbi Mendel Epstein of Brooklyn appeared in a documentary titled "Women Unchained" about Jewish women having difficulty divorcing from their philandering husbands.
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.
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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.”
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“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.
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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.
RELATED: YESHIVA HIRED TEACHER WITH LEWD BEHAVIOR HISTORY: LAWSUIT
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.”
Todd Maisel/New York Daily News
Mr. Goldstein, a Midwood, Brooklyn man who wouldn't give his first name, says he was a victim of Rabbi Epstein.
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“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.
Epstein also said his gang “convinced” husbands to grant the get by putting plastic bags over their heads.
RELATED: CHEVRA HATZALAH CEO QUITS
STAN HONDA/AFP/GettyImages
In Jewish culture, divorce is called
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/bklyn-rabbi-charged-100-000-torture-husbands-divorce-feds-article-1.1481722#ixzz2hQAYI4UW
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