Rabbi Sholom Shuchat pleaded guilty in federal court in Newark today to one count of traveling in interstate commerce to commit an act of violence. Shuchat, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was part of team of eleven men, allegedly headed by Rabbi Mendel Epstein and Rabbi Martin Wolmark, who extorted recalcitrant husbands into granting their wives Jewish divorces, known as a get. The gang allegedly used electric cattle prods and other torture devices to force the husbands to grant the divorces.
Above: Rabbi Sholom Shuchat
Crown Heights Rabbi Pleads Guilty In Get Kidnapping And Extortion Case
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Rabbi Sholom Shuchat pleaded guilty in federal court in Newark today to one count of traveling in interstate commerce to commit an act of violence, the APP reported.
Shuchat, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was part of team of eleven men, allegedly headed by Rabbi Mendel Epstein and Rabbi Martin Wolmark, who extorted recalcitrant husbands into granting their wives Jewish divorces, known as a get. The gang allegedly used electric cattle prods and other torture devices to force the husbands to grant the divorces.
Women allegedly paid Epstein approximately $100,000 for this service.
Epstein, who lives in Brooklyn and Lakewood, and his son, David were indicted in May on kidnapping conspiracy, extortion and related charges, along with Wolmark, Jay “Yaakov” Goldstein, and Binyamin Stimler.
Four other men who were part of the original wave of arrests last October — brothers Avrohom and Moshe Goldstein (Jay Goldstein’s sons), Simcha Bulmash and David Hellman – previously pleaded guilty in the case.
Shuchat faces a maximum 20-year prison sentence.
Ariel Potash, another man involved in the scheme, pleaded guilty last week, a source close to the case told FailedMessiah.com.
Sentencing for the men who pleaded guilty is scheduled to take place in November.
The trial of Epstein, his son, Wolmark, Jay Goldstein and Stimler is scheduled take place in February 2015.
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