A Brooklyn Supreme Court judge told four Chassidic students who tunneled under the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in Crown Heights in January 2024 that they were wrong to refuse plea agreements in court on Jan. 13.
The four—Yisroel Binyamin, Yerachmiel Blumenfeld, Menachem Maidanchik and Yaakov Rothchild—will face trial in April, with charges that carry prison terms up to seven years, ABC reported.
“If these young gentlemen, if these kids think they’re exercising power over this court, they are sadly mistaken,” judge Adam Perlmutter said. “You’re a shame to your family. You’re a shame to the worldwide Chabad movement.”
“It is not becoming of followers of Jewish faith in a synagogue,” the judge added, noting that they should have talked to Chabad leadership before trying to enter the property at 770 Eastern Parkway. (The news of the tunnels led to an “explosion” of conspiracy theories on social media.)
“If you want to expand 770, they know how to do it. They built buildings all over the world,” he said. “They know it involved raising money, getting building permits, adjusting the zoning laws as necessary.”
The deal that the four students rejected included agreeing to avoid the site for three years. “Being banned from 770 for three years is worse than jail,” one of the students told the New York Post in October.
