Rabbi Gets 10-Year Jail Term In Kidnap-Divorce Plot

TRENTON, NJ -- Three Orthodox Jewish rabbis -- including one from Lakewood -- were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3 years to 10 years this week in a conspiracy to kidnap Jewish men to force them to give their wives religious divorces, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

Rabbis Mendel Epstein, 70, of Lakewood, was sentenced to 120 months -- 10 years -- in prison; Jay Goldstein, aka “Yaakov,” 61, of Brooklyn, was sentenced to 8 years (96 months) and Binyamin Stimler, 40, of Brooklyn, received a 39-month sentence in the case, according to news releases from Fishman’s office.

Epstein, Goldstein and Stimler all were convicted after a federal trial before U.S. District Judge Freda L. Wolfson on a charge of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, according to Fishman’s office. Goldstein and Stimler additionally were convicted of attempted kidnapping.

According to case documents 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 -- a religious divorce under Judaism.

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; his sons Moshe Goldstein, 32, and Avrohom Goldstein, 36; Simcha Bulmash, 32, David Hellman, 33, and Sholom Shuchat, 31, all of Brooklyn, and Ariel Potash, 42, of Monsey, N.Y. – traveled from New York to a warehouse in Middlesex County to execute the planned kidnapping of the husband to force him to give the get.

They arrived at the warehouse in two dark minivans shortly after 8 p.m. Some of the kidnap team members put on masks and entered the warehouse office with the undercover agent posing as the brother. The remaining kidnappers walked around the outside with flashlights. Over the next 15 minutes, members of the kidnap team went in and out of the warehouse office wearing disguises, including ski masks, Halloween masks and bandanas. They discussed their plan for kidnapping and assaulting the husband, how they planned to grab him, pull him down, tie him up, and take his phone. Members of the kidnap team brought with them to the warehouse a 30-foot nylon rope, a blindfold, vodka, license plates they had switched out, and items used to ceremonially record the get.

At 8:23 p.m., law enforcement moved into the warehouse office and arrested the eight men, including Jay Goldstein and Stimler. Epstein was arrested at his Brooklyn home the same night.

In addition to the prison terms, Wolfson sentenced all three to five years of supervised release.

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 earlier this week to 38 months in prison.