(JTA) — Two brothers were arrested in connection with the 2014 kidnapping and murder of a Jewish Brooklyn landlord.
Erskin and Kendall Felix, aged 38 and 28, respectively, were taken into custody for their alleged roles in the killing of Menachem Stark, the New York Daily News reported Friday based on information obtained from police sources.
Stark, a married father of seven, was kidnapped outside his Williamsburg office during a botched robbery in the middle of a snowstorm on Jan. 2, 2014. His burned body was later discovered in a dumpster beside a gas station in Great Neck, Long Island.
Erskin Felix faces murder and kidnapping charges, while his sibling was charged with hindering prosecution and tampering with physical evidence, according to the report. Both were being held at the New York Police Department’s 90th Precinct early Friday.
The arrests came approximately three weeks after the brothers’ cousin, Kendel Felix, 29, was convicted of killing the 39-year-old Stark. Kendel Felix was found guilty of kidnapping and murdering the Hasidic real estate developer.
In a videotaped confession, Kendel Felix, a carpenter who once worked for Stark, said Erskin Felix was the mastermind of the scheme, the Daily News reported.
“I’m scared s***less because this wasn’t supposed to happen,” Kendel Felix told Kenneth Taub, chief of the Brooklyn district attorney’s homicide bureau.
According to prosecutors, the Felix brothers and their cousin dragged Stark into a minivan following an intense tussle on the street. Stark died of asphyxiation after one of the co-conspirators sat on his chest in the back seat of the van, prosecutors said.
Kendel Felix is slated to be sentenced Nov. 2 in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
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