N.J. men charged in brutal kidnapping for divorce

There are messy divorces, bitter divorces and ugly divorces.

And then there are divorces in Lakewood, N.J.

The FBI on Thursday arrested two Lakewood residents who allegedly lured an uncooperative husband in the midst of a dissolving marriage to the central New Jersey township with the promise of a job. The two suspects then abducted the husband, brutally beat him and used an electric cattle prod on his genitals until he granted his estranged wife a Jewish divorce, according to court papers.

David Aryeh Epstein, 39, and Chaim Barush Rubin, 32, have been charged in federal court in Trenton with kidnapping.

It's not an unusual occurrence in Lakewood.

Last week, a rabbi admitted he was paid $100,000 to extract a divorce from an Israeli man. David Wax, 51, pleaded guilty on May 6 to a charge of conspiring to kidnap the man. Wax told a federal judge that he had two toughs put the man inside a body bag and threatened to bury the man alive in the Poconos unless he granted his scorned wife an Orthodox divorce.

Epstein's father, Rabbi Mendel Epstein also of Lakewood, was charged in October in a conspiracy to violently coerce another divorce, according to federal prosecutors.

According to court documents unsealed Thursday, the uncooperative husband in the most recent case was also engaged in a contested divorce. During the summer of 2009, the husband separated from his wife and moved out of the family's Brooklyn home. In November 2009, the husband received a phone call allegedly from Rubin offering him a job at a document shredding company called ShredZone in Lakewood. The husband accepted the offer and relocated to central Jersey.

Several days after starting work, Rubin asked the husband to stay late for a meeting. About 7 p.m., the husband walked to his car in the office parking lot. As he placed personal items in the trunk, two men attacked, according to court papers.

The men dragged the husband into a van. As a third man drove the vehicle, the attackers pulled the husband's jacket over his head, bound it with duct tape and restrained his hands and arms with zip ties., according to court papers.

After several minutes of driving, the van pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. The attackers then beat the husband, telling the husband they had been sent by his then-wife. She wanted a "get," they said. A get was the religious proclamation that would free her from the marriage. Only the husband could grant it. And though a get is supposed to granted of the husband's free will, she allegedly wasn't going to let a technicality stop the split.

The men told the husband they "were willing to do whatever needed to be done," according to the affidavit, including breaking his bones. To show they were serious, they used a cattle prod to shock the husband's fingers and genitals.

During the beating, Rubin got into the front seat of the van. Rubin was accompanied by a rabbi with a video camera. The rabbi told the husband to repeat the words necessary to dissolve the marriage. The husband initially refused. One of the men began to stomp him. The husband "relented and recited the words as directed by the rabbi," according to court documents.

The victim, no longer religiously married, was driven to another location and tossed from the van. After finding his way to a house nearby, he called for help. He was taken to a local emergency room where he was treated for broken ribs, a bruised spine and other injuries.

In January this year, the victim was shown a photo array and identified the men who abducted him, four years after the event, prosecutors said.

David Epstein and Rubin were released on $500,000 bail with home detention and electronic monitoring.