NEW JERSEY
NJ.com
By MaryAnn Spoto | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on March 02, 2015
TRENTON — A Brooklyn man testifying in the trial of a Lakewood rabbi accused of ordering beatings to force divorce agreements told jurors on Monday that he and his roommate were victims of one of those attacks.
The testimony offered in the seventh day of the federal conspiracy trial of rabbi Mendel Epstein, did not directly link the religious leader to participating in the Aug. 22, 2011, attack, but it did potentially connect his son, who is also charged in the indictment, to the attacks that federal prosecutors say were orchestrated to force Orthodox Jewish men into giving their wives divorces.
However, Menachem Teitelbaum indirectly linked the rabbi to the incident when he said he heard one of his attackers mention the words “Epstein” and “father.”
Testifying to a jury of eight men and eight women before U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson in Trenton, Teitelbaum said he had been asleep in his Brooklyn basement apartment for nearly an hour after returning from his job at a local grocery store when he was awakened by a man who punched him in the face.
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