Federal authorities charged a Kiryas Joel man and an Israeli rabbi on Wednesday with trying to kidnap and murder a fellow Orthodox Jew who had refused to allow his wife a divorce.

According to the criminal complaint, the two suspects paid a man $55,000 over several months to carry out their scheme, even as he was recording their conversations and cooperating with authorities. Agents arrested Shimen Liebowitz, 25, of Kiryas Joel and Aharon Goldberg, 55, of Bnei Brak in Central Valley on Tuesday. Each has been charged with a single count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder for hire.

Liebowitz and Goldberg were due to appear before Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Wednesday.

The complaint calls Goldberg "an Israeli-based rabbi who also maintains a position of prominence in Kiryas Joel." The meetings at which he and Liebowitz discussed their plans with the informant took place in Kiryas Joel, Woodbury Common Premium Outlets in Central Valley, and in Rockland County, according to the complaint.

Authorities allege the two suspects originally wanted the informant to kidnap and torture the husband until he signed a "get," a religious document through which a husband consents to a divorce in Orthodox tradition. But the plan soon evolved into killing the man instead to dissolve the marriage. Liebowitz and Goldberg allegedly considered luring him to Pennsylvania or else having him abducted in Ukraine, where the intended victim planned to travel this month for the Jewish holidays.

The complaint doesn't explain why the suspects were involved in the marital dispute and gives little information about the target of the alleged plot. At a meeting at Woodbury Common last Friday, Liebowitz allegedly told the informant that the intended victim drives a taxi and that his family might not miss him for a few days if he disappeared because he sometimes drives to Montreal.

"I can tell you in the back of my mind, it looks like, his parents will be happy when it happens," Liebowitz said, according to an excerpt of the recording that was cited in the complaint.

cmckenna@th-record.com