Six men who were arrested in an attempt to dig a tunnel into the Brooklyn headquarters of the Chabad Hasidic movement accepted plea deals on Monday, while four others opted to go to trial.
The guilty pleas were the latest stage in the Chabad tunnel saga, which burst into view one year ago when a fracas broke out at a synagogue in the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway. A group of men broke down a wall at the synagogue as part of an attempt to tunnel into the building, part of a bid to expand the headquarters. Investigators found that the tunnel stretched 60 feet.
The incident gained international attention and led to more than a dozen arrests and citations, while 770 was closed for days out of structural integrity concerns. Chabad leadership denounced the tunnelers as a fringe group.