Rabbi and wife surrender to FBI
Published:Tuesday | July 19, 2011 | 12:00 AM
NEW JERSEY (AP):
A New Jersey rabbi and his wife surrendered to the FBI yesterday on charges that they abducted an Israeli man, beat him and threatened to bury him alive if he did not give his wife a religious divorce.
The case against David Wax and his wife in US federal court marks a strange twist in a chain of events that started with a divorce dispute in Israel's Rabbinical Court over the victim's refusal to give his wife a 'get', an Orthodox Jewish divorce document permitting a wife to remarry.
It also entangles a prominent religious figure and publisher of Jewish texts, described as a "pillar of the community" of Lakewood, NJ, a large Orthodox enclave and centre of Jewish learning.
David Wax, 49, and Judy Wax, 47, made a brief appearance in federal court yesterday before being released on US$500,000 bond each. A grand jury will decide whether to indict them on kidnapping charges, which could result in a life sentence if they are convicted.
"We're confident that when all the facts are made public, he'll be cleared of these charges and his good and honourable name will be restored," Mitchell Ansell, David Wax's attorney, told The Associated Press.