TRENTON —A Lakewood rabbi accused of arranging the kidnapping and beating of Orthodox Jewish husbands until they agreed to give their wives divorces got underway this morning with prosecutors saying he orchestrated the torture - sometimes with stun guns - of three men who eventually complied.

But in a case that asks jurors to decide when religious practices cross into the realm of criminality, the attorney for Mendel Epstein said the well-respected rabbi was following Jewish law in facilitating divorces from stubborn husbands but did not break any criminal laws.

Epstein, a prominent rabbi who specializes in divorce proceedings, is on trial in federal court in Trenton along with his son, David "Ari" Epstein, and two other rabbis, Binyamin Stimler and Jay Goldstein, on conspiracy and kidnapping charges that grew out of a federal undercover sting.

"They conspired to kidnap men, tie them up, blindfold them, and beat them - including at some time using stun guns - to force them to participate in a Jewish divorce ritual," Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Gribko told the jury of eight men and eight women in his opening arguments.

Gribko began his opening statements by playing for jurors a snippet of a surveillance video of Epstein who unknowingly was meeting in August 2012 with an undercover federal agent posing as an Orthodox Jewish woman seeking a religious divorce.

When arrangements were finally made to meet with the husband, who did not actually exist, on Oct. 9, 2013, Goldstein, Stimler and six others instead were arrested in a warehouse in Edison. Authorities contend the men, who were flexing and shadow boxing as they waited for their prey, planned to beat the husband - who did not actually exist - until he agreed to a divorce, known as a get.

Jurors saw photos of four other bloodied and bruised men whom federal prosecutors say were beaten or tortured as part of the conspiracy in 2009, 2010 and 2011. One of them was beaten merely for being the roommate of a man who refused to give his wife a divorce, Gribko said.

Gribko said the wives seeking divorces - or their families - were charged tens of thousands of dollars for the forced gets. He said a rabbinical court received $10,000 and the "tough guys" were paid a total of $50,000.

"This was an expensive thing to do," Gribko said. "These men did not do this for free."

But Robert Stahl, a Westfield attorney representing the elder Epstein, said prosecutors took his client's words out of context in the surveillance recordings. He said Epstein, who has written a book to help Orthodox Jewish women secure gets, follows the strict Jewish laws that encourage the community to ostracize - and in some cases torture - men who refuse to give their wives divorces.

"This is not a band of criminals...going around extorting men for money or beating men for money," Stahl said in the opening statements before U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson.

In the courtroom, the defense attorneys and their assistants sat at an L-shaped table with their clients sitting behind them in burgundy leather chairs. The three rabbis, who all wore yarmulkes, had long beards. The younger Epstein was clean-shaven and with short hair under his yarmulke.

The six wooden benches in gallery behind the defense table were filled with supporters, who also occupied many of the benches behind the prosecutors' table.

U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman sat in the gallery during the first half of opening arguments, which lasted the full day.

Stahl said the Jewish community views a husband who refuses to grant a get as being consumed by evil and that Jewish law has a remedy for that.

"Force and torture can be used until evil leaves the husband's body and he does what he's supposed to do," Stahl said.

In their opening statements, the defense attorneys attacked the government's main witness, David Wax, who with his wife Judy was arrested on charges they beat one man in their Lakewood home.

The attorneys said Wax, who is expected to testify as a government witness, falsely claimed their clients participated in the kidnappings.

Aidan O'Connor, attorney for Goldstein, said his client's sole role in the divorce process was to write the get on a special parchment paper in Hebrew and Aramaic using a quill pen.

"Jay Goldstein is a scribe. He's not a thug," O'Connor said. "He's not the muscle. He's not the tough guy that the government talks about. Jay Goldstein was not out to kidnap anybody for money."

Henry Mazurek, attorney for the younger Epstein, said Wax and his wife lied when they claimed his client was in their bedroom as one of the victims was being beaten.

"Ari Epstein was not in that bedroom," Mazurek said. "They put him there to save themselves."

He said he'll show jurors that Epstein was on a business trip in Cincinnati when the beating occurred.

Another victim is expected to testify that Epstein was the driver of a minivan that pulled up outside the Lakewood business where he worked. The passengers, authorities said, beat the man in the vehicle before dumping him on the side of the road after he finally agreed to grant a get. The victim picked the younger Epstein from a photo array but Mazurek said the identification, which came more than four years after the incident, was faulty.

Attorney Nathan Lewin, who represents Stimler, said his client was arrested during the sting at the Edison warehouse where he was prepared to sign the get as a witness, something he had done for many other couples in the past.

"So how does he manage to get involved in this case?" Lewin asked the jury. "Because he's in the wrong place at the wrong time."

MaryAnn Spoto may be reached at mspoto@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @MaryAnnSpoto. Find NJ.com on Facebook.