NEWARK - A federal appeals court Friday affirmed the convictions of Lakewood Rabbi Mendel Epstein and two other rabbis found guilty in a conspiracy to kidnap Orthodox Jewish husbands to force them to grant their wives permission to divorce.

Epstein, 70, is serving a 10-year prison term imposed in 2015. See the newsbreak video above from when he was sentenced in 2015.

His conviction and that of two other rabbis, Jay Goldstein, 61, and Binnaymin Stimler, 41, both of Brooklyn, New York, were upheld by judges with the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, Acting U.S. Attorney William E. Fitzpatrick said.

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Attorneys for the rabbis argued before appellate judges in Philadelphia in February to overturn the convictions on grounds that the prosecution violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. They argued the government's decision to prosecute them "burdened their sincerely held religious beliefs,'' according to the decision upholding the convictions.



Judges Michael A. Chagares, L. Felipe Restrepo and Jane R. Roth of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that argument.



"In the alternative, the District Court found that the government had a compelling interest in the uniform prosecution of kidnapping laws and that the prosecution of the defendants was the least restrictive way of achieving that interest," Roth wrote in the panel's opinion.

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The defendants put forth a number of other arguments to throw out the convictions, including one from Goldstein that the government should have first obtained a warrant to obtain cell-site location data from his cellular phone.

The court majority said none of the arguments had any merit. Restrepo, however, dissented from the majority's conclusion about the cell-site evidence. He said the government should have obtained a warrant to obtain it.

The rabbis were convicted at a trial in 2015 of conspiring to commit kidnapping. At the trial, prosecutors described Epstein as the group's leader.

Prosecutors said Epstein oversaw a group of people who used brutal methods that sometimes included the use of handcuffs and electric cattle prods to torture men until they would agree to grant their wives a divorce. The attacks were carried out from 2009 to 2013 in New Jersey, New York City and other locations, prosecutors said.

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Under Orthodox Jewish law, only a husband can grant a divorce, and a wife trapped in a failed marriage is regarded as an "agunah," or "chained" woman, forbidden by Orthodox Jewish law to remarry.



Epstein claimed his efforts had helped hundreds of women to remarry and go on to lead happy, fulfilling lives without stigma.

His attorney did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.



Goldstein is serving an eight-year prison term. Stimler received a three-year sentence.

Kathleen Hopkins: 732-643-4202; Khopkins@app.com