ASBURY PARK PRESS :: MONMOUTH EDITION

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WEDNESDAY 04.15.15

Restaurateur faces charges

Owner of Mariners Cove, Nicks Horizon Diner indicted in tax evasion case. 10A

Phase out Social Security payments for

those who make $200,000 a year in
other income during retirement (would
not impact current program enrollees).

Benefits
on table?
2

THE JOURNAL NEWS PHOTO

Prosecutors say Rabbi Mendel Epstein employed a kidnap

team to force unwilling husbands to divorce their wives.

There was
no cattle
prod, rabbis
lawyer says

Gradually raise retirement age to 69

and the early retirement age to 64.

Cuts in entitlements,
raising retirement age
pitched in N.H. speech
BOB JORDAN @BOBJORDANAPP

SHANNON MULLEN @MULLENAPP

MANCHESTER, N.H. Gov. Chris Christie unveiled

a potentially high-risk, high-reward strategy to reboot his nascent presidential campaign, saying he favors cuts in popular entitlement programs, including eliminating benefits for some high-income individuals.

3
Gov. Chris Christie speaks at the
New Hampshire Institute of
Politics at St. Anselm College on
Tuesday in Manchester, New
Hampshire.
ASSOCIATED PRESS

TRENTON The federal kidnapping case against the

Lakewood rabbi dubbed The Prodfather lacks a critical piece of evidence, his attorney says: an actual cattle
prod.
Robert Stahl, representing Rabbi Mendel Epstein,
noted in his closing remarks Tuesday that there were no
electric shock devices or other weapons recovered in
2013 when FBI agents swept into an Edison warehouse
and arrested a group of men with ties to his client.
The government loved Rabbi Epsteins words on
the tape, but you know what? There was no cattle prod,
Stahl told the jury of eight men and eight women.
The attorney was referring to one of the prosecutions key pieces of evidence, a recording in which Epstein extols the persuasive powers of such a device
when applied to certain parts of the body.
Epstein, 69, well known within the insular Orthodox
Jewish communities in Brooklyn and Lakewood as an
authority on contentious religious divorces, is charged
with one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and
one count of kidnapping.
He was arrested along with a group of alleged accomplices, including his son, David Ari Epstein, also
of Lakewood, in October 2013 following an FBI sting in
which undercover agents posing as a wife and her
brother sought the elder Epsteins help in extracting a
divorce from the womans husband, in exchange for a
fee of up to $70,000.
Without a get, a document that proves that a marriage has been dissolved under Jewish law, a wife cannot remarry and faces being ostracized as an agunah, a
term that means chained woman.
In his closing, Stahl also sought to undo some of the
damage done by another recorded conversation in
which Epstein uses blunt language to explain how the

Means test for those who make $80,000

a year in non-Social Security income,
with reduced payments.

Perhaps underscoring his bold gamble, Christie

also said for the first time that he felt he was ready
to run for president. That admission, made in an interview with Yahoo News, is important, because in
2012, Christie repeatedly said he wasnt ready to run.
That he feels ready now would seem to push the New
Jersey governor that much closer to entering the
race.
His entitlement reform plan seemed designed to
do the same. In a policy speech at St. Anselm College,
Christie told residents of the state with the first
presidential primary that there should be means
testing, so high-income seniors receive smaller
See CHRISTIE, Page 5A

Similar changes to Medicare. Seniors

with $85,000 annual income would pay
40 percent of premium costs, and those
above $196,000 would pay 90 percent.

See TRIAL, Page 5A

Bon Jovi brings B.E.A.T. to Toms River

JEAN MIKLE @JEANMIKLE
TOMS RIVER Superstar rocker Jon Bon Jovi believes Sandy-battered Ocean County has not received
its fair share of the resources necessary to help families recover from the storm.
Thats why Bon Jovis JBJ Soul Foundation decided
to partner with two local charities The FoodBank of
Monmouth and Ocean Counties and The Peoples Pan-

USA TODAY

Bon Jovi also is no stranger

to nearby Seaside Heights
Jersey is Seaside.
STORY, 6A

try to open a community center on Hooper Avenue

aimed at fighting hunger in a region still struggling
with the after-effects of the storm.
I know people who have been hungry, Bon Jovi
said. Youd be shocked to know these hardworking,
middle-class people from the tri-state area who after
the economic downturn couldnt afford to keep a con-

Jon Bon Jovi announces the

construction of the B.E.A.T.
Center Tuesday in Toms River.
THOMAS P. COSTELLO/

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

See BON JOVI, Page 6A

FEW BLACK ARMY OFFICERS AT THE TOP PAGE 1B

Jersey Shore Restaurant Week

celebrates local hot spots. TABLE, 1D

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VOLUME 136
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