TRENTON, N.J. - Two Orthodox Jewish Rabbis were sentenced to prison today for conspiring to kidnap Jewish men in an effort to force them to give their wives religious divorces, referred to as “gets,” U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
Rabbis Mendel Epstein, 70, of Lakewood, New Jersey, and Binyamin Stimler, 40, of Brooklyn, New York, were sentenced to 120 and 39 months in prison, respectively. They were both convicted at trial of Count One of an indictment charging them with conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Stimler was additionally convicted on Count Five of the indictment, attempted kidnapping. Judge Wolfson imposed both sentences today in Trenton federal court.
According to documents filed in this case and the evidence at trial:
On Dec. 1, 2009, in Lakewood, an Orthodox Jewish man, Israel Markowitz, was assaulted, placed in a van, tied up, beaten and shocked with a stun-gun until he agreed to give his wife a get.
On Oct. 16, 2010, in Lakewood, another Orthodox Jewish man, Ysrael Bryskman, was assaulted, tied up and beaten until he agreed to give his wife a get.
On Aug. 22, 2011, in Brooklyn, another Orthodox Jewish man, Usher Chaimowitz, and his roommate, Menachem Teitlebaum, were assaulted, tied up and beaten until Chaimowitz agreed to give his wife a get.
Based upon these incidents, the FBI began an undercover operation in August 2013 in which two FBI agents posed as a wife who was seeking a get from her recalcitrant husband, and her brother, who was trying to help her obtain the get. Over the next several weeks, the undercover agents had multiple recorded phone calls and in-person meetings with defendant Epstein. In those meetings, Epstein arranged to have his team kidnap the husband at a warehouse in exchange for $60,000.
On October 9, 2013, Stimler and others – including Jay Goldstein, 61, Moshe Goldstein, 32, Avrohom Goldstein, 36, Simcha Bulmash, 32, David Hellman, 33, and Sholom Shuchat, 31, all of Brooklyn, and Ariel Potash, 42, of Monsey, New York – traveled from New York to a warehouse in Middlesex County, New Jersey, to execute the planned kidnapping of the husband to force him to give the get.
Avrohom Goldstein, Potash, Shuchat, Moshe Goldstein, Hellman, and Bulmash have all pleaded guilty to one count of traveling in interstate commerce to commit extortion.
Avrohom Goldstein and Potash were sentenced Nov. 19, 2015 to 45 and 14 months in prison, respectively. Shuchat was sentenced to time served on Nov. 19, 2015. Moshe Goldstein was sentenced Nov. 16, 2015 to 48 months in prison. Hellman and Bulmash were sentenced Nov. 17, 2015 to 44 and 48 months in prison, respectively. Martin Wolmark, 57, of Monsey, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce to commit extortion and was sentenced yesterday to 38 months in prison.
