NEW JERSEY
NJ.com
By MaryAnn Spoto | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on February 18, 2015
TRENTON —A Lakewood rabbi accused of arranging the kidnapping and beating of Orthodox Jewish husbands until they agreed to give their wives divorces got underway this morning with prosecutors saying he orchestrated the torture – sometimes with stun guns – of three men who eventually complied.
But in a case that asks jurors to decide when religious practices cross into the realm of criminality, the attorney for Mendel Epstein said the well-respected rabbi was following Jewish law in facilitating divorces from stubborn husbands but did not break any criminal laws.
Epstein, a prominent rabbi who specializes in divorce proceedings, is on trial in federal court in Trenton along with his son, David “Ari” Epstein, and two other rabbis, Binyamin Stimler and Jay Goldstein, on conspiracy and kidnapping charges that grew out of a federal undercover sting.
“They conspired to kidnap men, tie them up, blindfold them, and beat them – including at some time using stun guns – to force them to participate in a Jewish divorce ritual,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Gribko told the jury of eight men and eight women in his opening arguments.
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