Family of Slain Chasidic Landlord Menachem Stark Calls for More Arrests
by Joshua Levitt
The brother of slain Brooklyn landlord Menachem Stark has called for the two other suspects linked to his abduction and murder to be charged in the crime after a Brooklyn Criminal Court on Thursday arraigned construction worker Kendel Felix on kidnapping and murder charges.
“Nobody should get away! They should come to justice,” Joel Stark said after Felix’s arraignment on Thursday, according to the New York Post on Friday.
Stark’s other brother, Yitzy, fought back tears after the proceeding, saying, “Everybody knows that he was a great man,” about deceased brother Menachem, a 39-year-old married father of seven. “We cannot have him back. The family will always be broken and our family will never be the same as it was in the past.”
Police said Felix, 26, confessed to the crime on Wednesday, and named two alleged accomplices — a man he said helped kidnap Stark and another who helped torch and dispose of his body. Police questioned the two suspects, but neither implicated themselves.
According to the Post, Felix allegedly told police he had done some construction work for Stark but had never been paid, and claimed that he and his accomplices wanted to scare Stark and get the money, but that the landlord died during the struggle when an accomplice sat on his chest in the back seat of the minivan they used to snatch him.
Assemblyman Dov Hikind said, “We want additional arrests, and I know [police] are working on it as we speak, but we want to make sure once these arrests happen, these individuals who committed this horrible act of violence, that they spend the rest of their life in jail.”