Lawyers for three Orthodox rabbis are seeking to overturn the 2015 conspiracy convictions that put the three in prison.
Authorities alleged that the rabbis used beatings, stun guns, and a cattle prod to force unwilling husbands to grant religious divorces to their wives.
On Wednesday, the lawyers appeared before a Third Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Philadelphia where they argued that investigators violated the constitutional rights of the rabbis during the criminal investigation and that there had been judicial errors during the trial.
Rabbis Mendel Epstein, Jay Goldstein, and Binyamin Stimler stood trial before U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson in Trenton where they were convicted in 2015 on charges of conspiracy to commit kidnapping.
Epstein, 70, of Lakewood, N.J., was dubbed “The Prodfather” and identified as the rabbi who orchestrated kidnappings and assaults of recalcitrant husbands. He was sentenced to 10 years. Goldstein, 61, of Brooklyn, N.Y., was sentenced to eight years, and Stimler, 41, also of Brooklyn, to three years.
The assaults were carried out from 2009 through 2013 in New Jersey and other locations, such as Brooklyn, according to court documents.
The documents detailed three attacks, in New Jersey and Brooklyn, in which husbands were kidnapped, tied up, and beaten. In one attack, the husband was assaulted with a stun gun.
During his sentencing, Epstein told the judge that he got caught up in his “tough guy” image as he tried to get “these reprobates to do the right thing.”
On Wednesday, Epstein’s attorney, Peter Goldberger, argued that Judge Wolfson erred during the trial by not allowing evidence that explained to the jury the rabbi’s religious beliefs.
The attorneys also argued that federal authorities failed to get a warrant to obtain private cell phone records, and that the evidence against Stimler was too scant to justify a conviction.
Assistant U.S. Prosecutors Norman Gross and Glenn Moramarco argued that the judge had not made errors during the trial, that investigators did properly obtain the cell phone records during the investigation, and that there was sufficient evidence to convict Stimler.
Epstein – the author of A Woman’s Guide to the Get Process – said he believed he was helping the men’s wives out of compassion because they women couldn’t remarry without a get, a religious divorce document, according to trial testimony.
Epstein was among 10 defendants arrested in October 2013 after planning an assault with a woman and her brother, who told the rabbi the husband would not sign a get. Without a religious divorce, Orthodox women are not permitted to remarry within the religion.
The woman and her brother were undercover FBI agents secretly recording their conversations. According to court records, Epstein advised the woman it would require using physical means and be expensive $60,000 to obtain the get.
“Basically, what we are going to be doing is kidnapping a guy for a couple of hours and beating him up and torturing him, and then getting him to give the get,” the rabbi said during an Aug. 13, 2013, recorded phone conversation.
He described the torture used, including the use of a cattle prod.
“If you can get a bull that weighs five tons to move, you put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know,” the rabbi said in the recording.
Epstein, who would not be present during the attack, said he would have an alibi for the kidnapping night, and suggested the wife also be seen in public so she, too, would have an alibi.
On Oct. 9, 2013, the “kidnap team” included eight people wearing ski masks, Halloween masks, and bandannas who traveled from New York to New Jersey to meet at a warehouse, the indictment said. They discussed grabbing, dragging, and tying up the husband. Among the materials authorities found with the team, according to the indictment, were rope, surgical blades, a screwdriver, and plastic bags.
It was not known when the appellate panel would issue its decision.
