TRENTON, N.J. – An Orthodox rabbi who pleaded guilty to his role in threatening a Jewish man to coerce him into giving his wife a religious divorce has been sentenced to prison.
Fifty-seven-year-old Martin Wolmark, of Monsey, New York, was sentenced to 38 months in prison on Monday by District Judge Freda Wolfson in Trenton.
Wolmark was recorded by an undercover federal agent who posed as a woman seeking a divorce document known as a get. He put the woman and an agent posing as her brother in touch with Rabbi Mendel Epstein.
Epstein was convicted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday. He was acquitted of attempted kidnapping.
Prosecutors say the team used brutal methods and tools, including handcuffs and electric cattle prods, to torture men into granting gets.
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