Rabbi charged in NY plot to murder divorce-refusing husband

A rabbi and another man have been charged in New York City in a plot to kidnap and kill a man so his wife could be divorced in a manner consistent with her religious beliefs.

US Attorney Preet Bharara says Shimen Liebowitz and Aharon Goldberg were arrested Tuesday in Central Valley while they met to plan what he calls a “chilling plot.” He says they planned to pay $55,000 to someone they thought would commit the murder but that person contacted the FBI.

Prosecutors say Liebowitz belongs to the ultra-Orthodox Satmar Hasidic community in the village Kiryas Joel. They say Goldberg is from Bnei Brak, Israel, and is a prominent rabbi in Kiryas Joel.

“The defendants are charged with a chilling plot to kidnap and murder the intended victim,” Bharara said according to a press statement. “Over a period of months, the Complaint alleges, they met repeatedly to plan the kidnapping and to pay more than $55,000 to an individual they believed would carry it out. Thanks to the exemplary work of our partners at the FBI and NYPD, Liebowitz and Goldberg are now in custody.”

The original plot was to kidnap the recalcitrant husband, according to FBI assistant director-in-charge William F. Sweeney Jr. However, at some point the two men decided to have him murdered.

“As if the plan to kidnap the victim and force him to divorce his wife in this alleged conspiracy wasn’t bad enough, the plotters allegedly decided halfway through the arrangement to go a step further and add murder to the list of their planned crimes,” Sweeney said. “Our country protects freedom of religious beliefs and practices, but no one is allowed to plot a kidnapping and murder regardless of their motivation,” he said in the press statement.

The two men are charged with one count each of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, which carries a maximum potential sentence of life in prison, and one count each of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, which carries a maximum potential sentence of 10 years in prison.

It’s unclear who’ll represent the men during a Manhattan federal court appearance.

In Orthodox Judaism, a marriage cannot be undone unless the man consents to a get — the Hebrew word for divorce. Rabbinical courts cannot force a man to give his wife a get but they can impose harsh punishments on men the judges determine are unjustly withholding a get and turning their wives into what is known in Judaism as agunot, or “chained women.”

Orthodox rabbis will not allow a chained woman remarry. Any children born to an agunah out of wedlock will in turn be ineligible for an Orthodox Jewish wedding.

In December a prominent rabbi from the New Jersey township of Lakewood was sentenced to 10 years in prison for running a ring that violently attempted to coerce Jewish men to grant their wives religious divorces.

The problem of recalcitrant husbands in the Jewish faith is dealt with in a few ways but can be complicated in the US, said Rabbi Mark Dratch, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America. In Israel, he said, husbands who refuse to grant divorces can be imprisoned. Because that can’t happen in the United States, communities sometimes exert social pressure on the husband.

Kiryas Joel, located about an hour north of Manhattan in New York’s Orange County, is home to a close-knit ultra-Orthodox community run by a Satmar faction led by Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum.