Two US rabbis held in bizarre divorce plot
AAP
October 11, 2013, 4:31 pm
Two rabbis in the US have been arrested for offering Jewish woman help getting a religious divorce. AP
A pair of New York rabbis offered some unorthodox tactics - in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars - to help Jewish women obtain religious divorces from their uncooperative husbands, including kidnapping, torture with cattle prods and karate beatings, the FBI alleges.
In a bizarre plot, unveiled in a criminal complaint filed in the US federal court in Trenton, New Jersey, on Thursday, rabbis Mendel Epstein of Brooklyn and Martin Wolmark of Suffern, New York, and eight associates were charged with conspiracy to kidnap and coerce a person to consent to a divorce.
The plot unravelled in an elaborate sting operation in which an undercover agent sought the assistance of the rabbis in divorcing a man who purportedly lived in South America, had a residence in Florida and was a partner in the real estate business with her brother.
The ruse came crashing down on Wednesday evening as agents arrested the rabbis at their homes and Ariel Potash and a man identified only as Yaakov at a Middlesex County warehouse where the kidnapping victim allegedly was to be taken and beaten.
Agents also made six other arrests and executed search warrants at Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Suffern and in Brooklyn.
Epstein and Wolmark allegedly charged Jewish women and their families tens of thousands of dollars to obtain religious divorces from their recalcitrant husbands by means of violence, the FBI said.
Under Jewish law, a husband must provide his wife with a document known as a "get" for her to obtain a divorce. If a husband refuses, a wife has the right to sue in rabbinical court. If the husband then fails to respond to the court's order, he may be subjected to various penalties in order to pressure him into consenting to the divorce, the complaint said.
With her pretend marriage and business relationships on the rocks, the female agent and another undercover agent posing as her brother told Wolmark in August that they were desperate for a religious divorce and were willing to pay a large sum of money, the FBI said.
Wolmark discussed the process for coercing a divorce, advised them it would be costly, and referred them to Epstein, the FBI said.
A week later, at a meeting at Epstein's house that was secretly recorded, "Epstein spoke about kidnapping, beating and torturing husbands in order to force a divorce," FBI Agent Bruce Kamerman said in court papers.
"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 allegedly told the agents.
Epstein allegedly admitted to committing a kidnapping every year to 18 months.
The female agent later arranged with Epstein and Wolmark to have a rabbinical court convene on October 2 and authorise the use of violence to obtain a forced get. The two rabbis, Potash and Yaakov attended the proceeding.
When the female agent asked Potash about his role, he replied: "Whatever the rabbis tell me," the complaint said.
Later that night, agents sent Epstein a $US20,000 wire transfer as an initial payment.
Meanwhile, the agent posing as the woman's brother had discussed luring the husband to a warehouse where he could be beaten and forced into granting a divorce. The abduction and beating was to take place on Wednesday night, at which time an additional payment of $US30,000 was to be made, the FBI said.
During their initial court appearance, the 10 defendants were ordered detained pending further hearings. A federal prosecutor said the group was responsible for up to 20 kidnappings over the years, and that money, not religion, was the driving force.
