NEW JERSEY
New York Daily News
BY REUVEN BLAU NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
A New Jersey jury found an Orthodox rabbi and two other men guilty of conspiring to kidnap Jewish husbands and violently force them to grant their wives religious divorces.
Prosecutors charged Mendel Epstein, 69, and nine other men who beat and tortured recalcitrant husbands who refused to give their wives a religious divorce called a get. The men used handcuffs, electric cattle prods, surgical blades, screwdrivers and hid their faces.
The maximum sentence for a conspiracy kidnapping charge is life in prison and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is set for July 15.
During the eight week trial in U.S. District Court in Trenton, prosecutors played secretly recorded conversations between an undercover posing as a wife desperately seeking help to convince her stubborn husband to give her a get.
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