A New York judge has issued a harsh rebuke to the Chabad students charged with digging a tunnel beneath the Chabad headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, according to the New York Post.
Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Adam Perlmutter expressed his displeasure after four of the 13 defendants chose to stand trial instead of pleading guilty. “If these young gentlemen, if these kids think they’re exercising power over this court, they are sadly mistaken,” he stated. He went on to tell the defendants, “You’re a shame to your family. You’re a shame to the worldwide Chabad movement.”
Two of the defendants will see their charges dismissed provided they refrain from digging beneath the Chabad headquarters again and stay out of trouble for six months. Seven others have pleaded guilty to lesser charges of criminal mischief and will pay $200 in restitution. They’ve also committed to avoiding any “destructive activity” at the headquarters for the next three years.
However, four of the defendants have refused to accept any plea offers. One of them told the Post in October that being barred from the Chabad headquarters for three years would be “worse than jail.”
In December 2023, an illegal tunnel was found beneath the Chabad headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn.
The following month, the New York Times reported that a group of Jewish “extremist” students from the Chabad-Lubavitch movement had started digging the tunnel, which they planned to use for “expanding” the headquarters.
They worked with basic tools, using their bare hands to dig and putting the dirt into their pockets to avoid detection by other members of the congregation.
Eitan Kalmovich shared that “Six men in their teens and twenties gathered money and hired a group of Mexican migrants to finish the work.”
The workers stayed in an abandoned building that housed a mikvah for men at the Chabad headquarters during the project to keep the operation hidden. They lived there for three months, ensuring the tunnel was constructed properly, even installing support beams.
{Matzav.com}