NEW JERSEY
NJ.com
By MaryAnn Spoto | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on April 21, 2015
TRENTON — A jury on Tuesday convicted Lakewood Rabbi Mendel Epstein and two of his three defendants of kidnapping conspiracy and attempted kidnapping charges for the beating of husbands to force them to agree to religious divorces.
At the same time, the jurors acquitted Epstein’s son, David “Ari” Epstein, of all charges.
Epstein, a prominent rabbi who specializes in divorce proceedings, was on trial along with his son and two other rabbis, Binyamin Stimler and Jay Goldstein, on conspiracy, kidnapping and attempted charges that grew out of a federal undercover sting.
After three full days of deliberations, jurors rejected all kidnapping charges against the men.
The father of nine, grandfather of 45 and great-grandfather of five, Epstein, 69, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit kidnapping but not guilty of an attempted kidnapping charge related to an undercover sting. In that sting, FBI agents secretly recorded conversations in which Epstein boastfully claimed that his “team” kidnaps and beats stubborn husbands until they agree to give their wives religious divorces, known as gets.
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