2013 New York divorce torture plot

In October 2013, police uncovered an alleged plot to torture Orthodox Jewish husbands into divorcing their wives. The men involved in the plot were paid up to $100,000 by desperate wives whose husbands refused to grant them a get. According to the FBI, the rabbi, Mendel Epstein, told investigators that the men used cattle prods, karate, handcuffs, and plastic bags over the men's heads to get them to cooperate. In the videotaped interview with two undercover agents who posed as an Orthodox Jewish wife and her brother, Epstein said, "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" and "If [a cattle prod] can get a bull that weighs five tons to move...You put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know". As part of the sting operation, a rabbinical court was held on October 2 in which the defendants authorized the use of force in extracting the get from the agent's "husband". In the late 1990s, Epstein had been accused of participating in the kidnapping of an abusive husband who had refused to grant his wife a get; that man had claimed to have been kidnapped, beaten, shocked with a stun gun to his genitals, and dumped outside a cemetery. [1][2][3][4]

In April 2015, Epstein and two accomplices were convicted, in the U.S. District Court in Trenton, NJ, of conspiring to kidnap. Six co-defendants also plead guilty before trial.[5][6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Prominent Rabbi Mendel Epstein arrested".
  2. ↑ "Rabbis among 4 charged in FBI divorce sting".
  3. ↑ Goldstein, Joseph; Schwirtz, Michael (October 10, 2013). "Rabbis Said to Use Torture, for Fee, to Force Divorce". The New York Times.
  4. ↑ Bandler, Jonathan; Lieberman, Steve; Journal, N.Y.) (October 10, 2013). "FBI arrests N.Y. rabbis in Jewish divorce-gang probe". USA Today.
  5. ↑ Blau, Reuven (April 22, 2015). "N.J. jury finds Orthodox rabbi guilty of kidnap-divorce plot". New York Daily News.
  6. ↑ "Three Orthodox Jewish Rabbis Convicted of Conspiracy to Kidnap Jewish Husbands in Order to Force Them to Consent to Religious Divorces". U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. April 21, 2015.
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