Maimonides issued a ruling in the case of a man who was ordered by a beth din (religious court) to divorce his wife and refused that "we coerce him until he states 'I want to.'"Maimoides; Mishneh Torah Hilkhot Gerushin 2:20 This is only true in cases where specific grounds for the verdict exist.Malinowitz, Chaim;"The New York State Get Bill and its Halachic Ramifications"; Jewish Law Articles In the 1990s, some activist rabbis had interpreted this statement to mean that torture could be applied against husbands in troubled marriages in order to force them into granting gittin (religious divorces) to their wives.Samaha, Albert (4 December 2013) "Bad Rabbi: Tales of Extortion and Torture Depict a Divorce Broker's Brutal Grip on the Orthodox Community", Village Voice One such group, the New York divorce coercion gang, was broken up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2013.Blau, Reuven (22 April 2015) "N.J. Jury Finds Orthodox Rabbi Guilty of Kidnap-Divorce Plot", New York Daily News
