Aharon Friedman assaulted in wife's driveway when returning child

Update: March 23, 2015  NJ.Com

 Fredric Goldfein told jurors in the federal conspiracy and kidnapping trial of Rabbi Mendel Epstein that in his efforts to get a Maryland man to agree to a divorce, Epstein instructed him to wire $60,000 to two of the congregations he led.
A few days after the money was transferred to Epstein's congregations, the husband, Aharon Friedman, was attacked on July 29, 2012, by three men at the home of his former in-laws in Pennsylvania in an attempt to force him to issue the divorce.
Goldfein, who is a rabbi, said he was led to believe the money was to go to the husband, Friedman, as part of his agreement to grant his wife a religious divorce so that she would eventually be permitted to remarry in the Orthodox Jewish community.
Entering their sixth week of trial, federal prosecutors on Monday showed bank records indicating four payments totaling $60,000 to Epstein's congregations in March and April of 2012, Congregation Kol Reuven and Congregation Beth Jacob, and Goldfein said Friedman did not receive the $60,000.

Update: March 20 2015 Tamar Epstein's lawyer Fredric Goldfein, is being asked to testify in the Mendel Epstein Torture for Get Trial. The U.S. Attorney is assuming he will take the 5th regarding whether Tamar had hired someone to beat her husband  - something which Goldfein has preveiously denied.

Concerned • a year ago

http://washingtonjewishweek.co...
Tamar Epstein's lawyer continues to mislead (to put it charitably) in new Washington Jewish Week article: Epstein’s attorney, Fredric Goldfein, gave an emphatic “no” when asked if Epstein had hired anyone to beat Friedman, adding he wasn’t even sure Friedman’s allegations “amounted to anything.”

updated

Guest Post August 5, 2012:  the police number is 1207290113 it is missing on the police blotter available on the internet as are many other numbers as it is an ongoing investigation

Don't cast aspersions on the accuracy of the information that is posted by Rabbi Eidensohn.  Aharon was attacked last  Sunday (Tisha B'Av) on the Epstein's property as he returned his loving child to the Epstein's house.  Those calling for Rabbi Eidensohn to apologize for supposedly posting a fabricated incident, themselves owe an apology to Aharon, and Rabbi Eidensohn - not to mention the child, who was nearby when the attack occurred.

 As a result of the attack there was an emergency change in the custody arrangements.According to the Maryland court docket system, which is available on the Internet, the docket for the case has an entry dated 8//3/12 stating:

 HEARING (SALANT, J.) ON PLAINTIFF'S
VERIFIED EMERGENCY MOTION TO MODIFY LOCATION OF TRANSITIONS AND
CUSTODY. - GRANTED. ORDER SIGNED.

Docket Date:	08/03/2012 Docket Number: 179
Docket Description:	MOTION, CHANGE OF CUSTODY (RESIDENTIAL)
Docket Type:	Motion Filed By: Plaintiff Status: Granted
Reference Docket(s):	Ruling: 181
Docket Text:	PLAINTIFF'S VERIFIED EMERGENCY MOTION TO MODIFY LOCATION OF TRANSITIONS AND CUSTODY, STATEMENT OF GROUNDS AND AUTHORITIES, CERTIFICATION UNDER MD. RULES 1-204 (B) AND 1-351, AND ATTACHMENT, FILED.

---

Docket Date:	08/03/2012 Docket Number: 180
Docket Description:	SUMMONS ISSUED
Docket Type:	Docket Filed By: Court
Docket Text:	SUMMONS ISSUED FOR PERSONAL SERVICE AND HANDED TO ATTORNEY.

---

Docket Date:	08/03/2012 Docket Number: 181
Docket Description:	HEARING
Docket Type:	Ruling Filed By: Court Status: Granted
Ruling Judge:	SALANT, STEVEN G
Reference Docket(s):	Motion: 179
Docket Text:	HEARING (SALANT, J.) ON PLAINTIFF'S VERIFIED EMERGENCY MOTION TO MODIFY LOCATION OF TRANSITIONS AND CUSTODY. (#179) - GRANTED. ORDER SIGNED. PLAINTIFF APPEARED WITH COUNSEL MS. MCGRATH. MS. ENGLE APPEARED BY PHONE ON BEHALF OF DEFENDANT, WHO WAS NOT PRESENT.
Audio Media:	15-080312 Start: 14:40:51 Stop: 15:13:41

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Guest Post: On Tisha B’av, a vicious attempted abduction of Aharon Friedman took place in on the property of Mrs. Cheryl Epstein, where Tamar Epstein and Aharon and Tamar's child currently reside. The attempted abduction took place as Aharon was leaving the property having returned his child to Mrs. Cheryl Epstein’s residence, pursuant to a court order. This vicious assault appears to be a continuation of the Epsteins’ ongoing efforts to prevent the child from having a relationship with her loving and dedicated father, which began over four years ago when Tamar Epstein abducted the child from Silver Spring to her mother’s home in Pennsylvania

The Epsteins’ campaign, coordinated with ORA, has included many threats against Aharon and ongoing harassment of him, his family, and his employer. In fact, various family members who have helped transport the child to ensure that Aharon can see her at all per a court order have been harassed at the very location where the assault took place, the property of Mrs. Cheryl Epstein. The child spent this past weekend of Shabbos Chazon with Aharon. By the order of the court, acting at Tamar’s request, father and child were restricted to the Philadelphia area. They spent Shabbos in a motel room, and Sunday, Tisha B’av, was spent 'walking the streets' as the Epsteins have, for over four years, made Aharon a pariah in the Philadelphia area and threatened anyone who would even think of providing a place to stay for Aharon and his child. The need for revenge has blinded Tamar and her family to the suffering she is inflicting on her child

Per the court order, Aharon brought the child to Mrs. Cheryl Epstein‘s home at 6 PM on Tisha B’av. Contrary to her usual lack of reception, when Aharon arrived, Mrs. Cheryl Epstein inquired about the child, speaking to Aharon for the first time in years. In fact, in an unprecedented instruction, she told the child to go back outside and give her father a kiss, calling into question her motivation, given what was to happen moments later on her own driveway. With the child nearby, two or three masked thugs hit Aharon over the head and knocked him to the ground. Did the Epstein family plan this attack on Aharon when he would be in a weakened state from fasting and be handicapped by wearing Tisha B‘av shoes? The thugs smashed his glasses and beat him. Miraculously,with Hashem’s chesed, Aharon escaped. The police were summoned and verified the incident with an eyewitness.

Mrs. Epstein resides in an upscale neighborhood with a low crime rate. Because Aharon’s car was intact and the car keys were on the ground, the motive cannot be construed as an attempted robbery. Aharon was sent to a local hospital for tests and treatment.
There have been numerous tragic incidents of Jewish fathers being abducted and beaten, but this time the thugs did not succeed in abducting Aharon. Are we to surmise that there is more to come?
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Additional guest post comments:

Rabbi Hershel Schachter's incitement to violence against Aharon

The violent attack against Aharon Friedman was at least partially the result of the incitement to violence against Aharon by various rabbis and organizations.  In this letter (see link below) that was publicized by ORA, Rabbi Hershel Schachter calls for Aharon to be physically beaten.  It is not yet known whether Rabbi Schachter was involved in hiring the thugs that attacked and attempted to kidnap Aharon on Tisha B'av.

One of the sources Rabbi Schachter cites in the letter against Aharon (Rabbi Akiva Eiger) is referenced in an audio lecture by Rabbi Schachter that is on Yeshiva University’s website: http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/739308/Rabbi_Hershel_Schachter/Options_for_Helping_Agunot# as grounds for beating someone over a get. (It is ironic that Rabbi Eiger writes about a husband who is leaving the city of the marital residence and that immediate action was necessary, whereas in this matter it was Epstein who left the city of marital residence with the child and abused the beis din process so that her abduction of the child would be treated as a fait accompli in court.)

In the letter, Rabbi Schachter says that Aharon's situation is the same as "a slave whose master provides for him a Canaanite maidservant, that until now it is has been permissible, and now it is forbidden." In the audio, he explains that in such a situation the slave, or, as he writes in the letter, Aharon, should be beaten. Furthermore, Rabbi Schachter specifically writes in the letter that any person can take the law into his own hands [to beat Aharon].

See in particular:
4:00 - beat someone over a get (citing Rabbi Akiva Eiger)
4:30 - beat a slave for wrongfully remaining married to maidservant, analogizing this case to the get case, and that anyone can take upon himself to take the law into their own hands to beat the person
9:10 - beat someone up over a get
10:20 - bludgeon someone to death over a get
13:33 - have right to beat someone over a get (citing Rabbi Akiva Eiger)
26:50 - beating for a get with a baseball bat

Rabbi Schachter’s letter can be found at Daas Torah here: http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2012/04/rav-schachter-i-relied-on-rav.html