NEW JERSEY
The Jewish Daily Forward
(Reuters) — An undercover FBI agent testified on Thursday in a case involving three Orthodox Jewish rabbis in New Jersey accused of kidnapping and beating husbands to force them to grant divorces under Jewish law to their wives.
Special Agent Jessica Weisman, who went by the name Rachel Marconi during the operation, said she weaved a complicated back story designed to provide a plausible excuse to the rabbis to explain why she knew no one from the close-knit Orthodox community in Lakewood, New Jersey.
She told them of a husband in Argentina and provided them with fake wedding photos and counterfeit marriage contracts.
The three rabbis – Mendel Epstein, Binyamin Stimler and Jay Goldstein – and Epstein’s son David are accused of kidnapping or trying to kidnap men and torturing them with beatings and stun guns until they agreed to divorce their wives. Prosecutors say the events took place between 2009 and 2013.
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