Stark Family Raises Bounty on Killers to $25,000

The family of Brooklyn businessman Menachem Stark, who was brutally murdered late last week, is “extremely afraid” that his murderers won’t be caught and have raised the reward for information leading to their capture to $25,000, Rabbi David Niederman, a close family friend told The Algemeiner.

“The family is very concerned to make sure that the perpetrators be caught as soon as possible, before any lead to them vanishes,” Niederman, who heads the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, said. “The family is extremely afraid that they are running out of time.”

An initial reward of $11,000 was announced at a press conference on Sunday, $10,000 of which was provided by the family. A further $1000 was donated on behalf of the Crown Heights Jewish community by local activist Chanina Sperlin.

Niederman also said that the family was calling on the New York Police Department to add to the sum total of the reward. “We are contacting the police as well to join the community on this,” he said.

The family felt compelled to offer the bounty because they want “to make sure that whoever was involved [in the crime] is caught, and does not vanish,” he said. “The family is asking the police to do whatever it takes.”

Stark was abducted by two men on Friday morning who were seen on surveillance footage bundling him into a white van. He was found dead on Saturday in a Long Island dumpster burnt from the waist down.

On Sunday, The New York Post’s was roundly criticized for its cover story that featured Stark, in traditional dress, including a streimel, a fur hat, and kapote, a satin black coat, beside the headline, “Slumlord found burned in dumpster: Who didn’t want him dead?”