Rabbi Mendel Epstein, dubbed "The Prodfather" for using an electric cattle prod to torture men, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday for his involvement in a plot to kidnap Jewish men and coerce them into agreeing to give their wives religious divorces, according to New York's CBS local. The Orthodox Jewish rabbi admitted to the judge that he had "gotten caught up in his tough-guy image" while heading up a ring that tortured men brutally, to get them to grant their wives divorces.
"Truthfully, it helped me - the reputation - convince many of these reprobates to do the right thing," Epstein told District Judge Freda Wolfson, according to CBS News.
The 70-year-old rabbi of Lakewood, N.J. was convicted in April on conspiracy to commit kidnapping, in which prosecutors said Epstein led a team of nine followers who brutally tortured men, using tools, handcuffs, screwdrivers, surgical blades, rope and electric cattle prods to bully them into granting a divorce, or "get" as is called. Jewish law mandates that the get must be presented by the husband to his wife in order for the divorce to be official.
Epstein claims he was "helping out" the women due to his sense of compassion because they could not remarry without a get. But Wolfson noted Epstein demanded $60 thousand for a beatdown solicited by a pair of undercover agents in exchange for him eliciting a get from the fictitious husband they needed a divorce from.
"He did this regularly. He did this for money," claimed Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Gribko. "He understood exactly how out of hand this could get."
In an undercover recording, Epstein described how the kidnappers used the cattle prods.
"If (the cattle prod) can get a bull that weighs 5 tons to move, you put it in certain parts of his body and in one minute the guy will know," prosecutors said Epstein told two undercover FBI agents.
Israel Markowitz testified as a witness, stating the Epstein and his crew lured him to Lakewood in 2009, and tortured him into giving his wife a get, according to the New York Daily News. Markowitz also testified that he recognized Epstein's son, David Epstein, as one of the men who tortured him.
A second man, Rabbi Binyamin Stimler, 40, of Brooklyn, N.Y., received a sentence of three years and three months for his role in the kidnapping and torture ring.
