NEW YORK—Four men accused of damaging a Brooklyn synagogue during a melee that followed the discovery of a secret tunnel at the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement of Hasidic Judaism are set to stand trial after turning down a plea deal offered by prosecutors.
The men face felony criminal mischief charges for their alleged role in a brawl last January that damaged parts of the famed complex, a deeply revered Jewish site that receives thousands of visitors annually.
At the time, scores of young men had gathered to protest an attempt by synagogue leaders to seal off a makeshift tunnel that some congregants had dug without permission in an effort to expand the worship space. When police arrived, prosecutors say some of the men ripped wooden siding off the wall, flung prayer books in the air, and refused to leave the dusty excavation site.
Sixteen people were arrested following the altercation, which was partially captured on video, drawing widespread social media attention and curiosity.
At a court conference Monday, six defendants pleaded guilty to lesser charges and agreed to an order of protection that prohibits them from making “alterations, excavations or demolitions to the synagogue” for three years. Six others have previously pleaded guilty to reduced charges.
“This is a blemish on the Chabad movement as far as I’m concerned,” Judge Adam Perlmutter told the men, scolding them for not consulting with synagogue leadership about the expansion plan. “They built buildings all over the world. It involves raising money, hiring architects, getting building permits and any rezoning as necessary. It is the only way that it gets done in this town.”
Four of the defendants—Yaakov Rothchild, Yisroel Binyamin, Yerachmiel Blumenfeld, and Menachem Maidanchik—declined the plea deal offered by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. They are scheduled to face trial on April 28 on a felony charge that carries a maximum prison sentence of 7 years.
Jonathan Strauss, an attorney for Blumenfeld, called the charges an “outrage” and described his client as a participant in a “civil dispute that’s been going on for many, many years.”
“He’s a 20-year-old kid,” Strauss said. “Kids don’t decide on their own to take the actions he did without being told to do so by much older and wiser people of authority.”
Proponents of the tunnel said they were carrying out the wishes of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the longtime leader of the Chabad movement and one of Judaism’s most influential figures, who spoke of expanding the densely packed religious space before his death in 1994. Some members of the Chabad community believe Schneerson is still alive and that he is a messiah.
The messianic view has long been rejected by Chabad’s administrators, who characterized the illicit passageway as a rogue act of youth vandalism.
“There is no righteous justification, theological or otherwise, for their lawless and violent behavior,” said Rabbi Motti Seligson, a spokesman for the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. “We pray that they actually heed the Rebbe’s teachings of highest ethics and see the grave error of their ways, and make moral and religious amends for the immense pain and damage they’ve wrought.”
Stretching 60 feet long and 8 feet wide, the tunnel connected multiple buildings in the Jewish complex through holes cut in basement walls.
An investigation by the Department of Buildings found the excavation had destabilized multiple nearby buildings, prompting vacate orders. The tunnel has since been filled with cement.