Lakewood rabbi's fate in hands of jury

By Shannon Mullen
Asbury Park Press
April 15, 2015

http://www.app.com/story/news/crime/jersey-mayhem/2015/04/15/lakewood-rabbi-epstein-trial/25824461/

Rabbi Mendel Epstein is accused of employing a kidnap team to force unwilling Jewish husbands to divorce their wives.

Prosecutors say Rabbi Mendel Epstein employed a kidnap team to force unwilling husbands to divorce their wives.

TRENTON – A jury has begun deliberating the fates of three rabbis, including Rabbi Mendel Epstein of Lakewood, and another man charged for their roles in a series of coerced religious divorces.

Jurors left the courtroom shortly after 2:30 p.m. and were released for the day by 4:30 p.m.

As a group, they have spent the past two months immersed in the obscure details and shadowy underside of how divorces are handled within the insular Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn and Lakewood.

Now they have to decide if the government proved its case against the four men beyond a reasonable doubt.

The central figure in the case is Epstein, 69, of Lakewood, the alleged mastermind behind the kidnappings of four recalcitrant husbands dating back to 2009.

One of those, on October 2013, turned out to be an elaborate FBI sting pulled off with the aid of a pair of undercover agents posing as a desperate wife and her brother. They allegedly hired Epstein and his team of heavies to obtain a get by violent means, if necessary.

Beatings, cattle prod

On videotape and recorded telephone conversations, the white-bearded rabbi describes a variety of persuasive techniques — including beatings, karate chops and using an electrified cattle prod to shock the husband's genitals and other sensitive body parts — that had proven effective in the past.

But Epstein's attorney, Robert Stahl, said his client wasn't serious when he made those comments.

Epstein is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and one count of kidnapping. Both charges carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Also accused are two other rabbis: Jay Goldstein and Binyamin Stimler, both of Brooklyn.

Goldstein, 60, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, one count of kidnapping and one count of attempted kidnapping.

Stimler, 38, who also has a home in Lakewood, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and one count of attempted kidnapping.

Epstein needed both men on his team to make certain the gets were properly witnessed and written, authorities allege.

Epstein's son, David "Ari" Epstein, provided some of the muscle, authorities allege.

The owner of a Lakewood-based pen business, the younger Epstein is charged with one count of conspiring to commit kidnapping and two counts of kidnapping. A third kidnapping charge against him was dropped Monday after earlier testimony from witnesses who said he was out of state on a business trip the day of the alleged kidnapping in August 2011.

Witnesses attacked

Earlier Wednesday, his attorney attacked the credibility of some of the government's key witnesses.

Chief among them were David and Judy Wax, a Lakewood couple who have implicated both Epsteins in a violent attack on an Orthodox Jewish man who refused to grant his wife a divorce.

The man, Yisrael Bryskman, testified that he was lured to the Waxes' home in December 2010 and beaten until he agreed to provide a get.

In his own testimony, Wax said he wore a white cowboy hat as he beat Bryskman. He and his wife, who struck a plea agreement with the government in exchange for their testimony, said Epstein and his son were paid a total of $50,000 for their help with the get.

But Henry Mazurek, representing the younger Epstein, said the Waxes concocted the story of the Epsteins' involvement to use as a bargaining chip with prosecutors.

Mazurek said David Wax repeatedly lied to investigators about his own violent role in the attack and lied again on the witness stand by providing details that aren't plausible.

"They got tripped up in their own lies," Mazurek told the jury. "They're fraudsters (who) have framed my client."

In his rebuttal, Assistant U.S. Attorney R. Joseph Gribko told the jury the evidence against all four defendants was overwhelming.

Gribko also took issue with statements made by Stimler's attorney suggesting the rabbi didn't realize it might turn violent when he rode with other members of the group to the ill-fated 2013 get at a warehouse in Edison — where the FBI was waiting for them.

"What do you think they were talking about on that ride down there? The Mets?" Gribko asked the jury.

"No, the kidnapping," he said.