RAMAPO, N.Y. — A podiatrist and his girlfriend plotted to kill his wife and have two insurance investigators looking into his business beaten up, town police said.
Police arrested Ira Bernstein, 42, and Kelly Myzner Gribeluk, 35, Monday night following a monthlong investigation they said was sparked when the person asked about killing Bernstein's wife reported the plot to the Spring Valley, N.Y., police.
Lt. Mark Emma, a Ramapo detective, said Bernstein and Gribeluk thought the man they approached had the connections they needed. He called the man an exceptional citizen for reporting the contact.
"This person had some sort of relationship with one of them," Emma said. "They asked him to cause injury to Bernstein's wife to result in her death. They made an assumption he could help them. He doesn't do those things."
Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugible, called the plot "a despicable plan to take the life of a wife and mother essentially for financial gain."
Bernstein has lost two malpractice lawsuits since 2014, totaling close to $2 million in judgments, records show.
The Bernsteins, who have three children, were getting divorced, officials said. Gribeluk, who lives in Airmont, N.Y., is divorced and has three children of her own who do not live with her.
Bernstein and Gribeluk were arraigned Tuesday in Ramapo Town Court. Justice Thomas Newman set bail at $600,000 for each, over the objections of their lawyers.
Bernstein's defense attorney, Kevin Conway, argued that he was not a flight risk, noting he had family, property and his business in the area.
Gribeluk's court-appointed lawyer, Jay Golland, said the lifelong Rockland County resident, a real-estate agent, did not have the means to post bail.
Police said Bernstein and Gribeluk also are accused of seeking to have two United Healthcare insurance investigators beaten up, allegedly because the investigators were going to refer fraud allegations involving Bernstein's podiatry business to the Rockland District Attorney's Office for investigation.
Prosecutor Richard Kennison Moran said the case was strong and included video, audiotapes, and wiretapped telephone conversations, as well as an exchange of money on several occasions.
Gribeluk had "made admissions to detectives as to her role in the matter," Moran said.
Police charged both with felony counts of second-degree conspiracy, second-degree solicitation and fourth-degree conspiracy, and a misdemeanor count of fourth-degree solicitation.
Gribeluk was the brains behind the operation, Emma said. He said the person she approached was asked to reach out to someone else to have Susan Bernstein killed and make it look like an accident.
Grideluk and Ira Bernstein met with her contact several times, and the couple eventually added the request to have the two insurance investigators roughed up.
As part of the investigation, Ramapo police had someone put makeup on the insurance investigators to try to fool Gribeluk and Ira Bernstein into thinking they had been assaulted as requested. The go-between showed photographs of the "injured" investigators to the pair, at which point they further discussed the plan to kill Bernstein's wife, officials said.
The pair were unemotional during meetings with the go-between, police said.
A key concern in the investigation was making sure that while the two were being strung along they did not find someone else to kill Ira Bernstein's wife, Ramapo Police Chief Brad Weidel said.
In 2015, A Rockland County jury found Bernstein negligent when it awarded $1.4 million to a 12-year-old girl for injuries after he operated on her for bunions and fused her growth plates, leaving her foot deformed and unstable during a growth spurt. The girl's lawyer argued that the operation was unnecessary.
In 2014, Bernstein forked over $775,000 to a Nyack, N.Y., woman after a botched bunion operation on her feet when she was 16. The woman is now a teacher and reportedly can't stand without pain.
Gribeluk's child-custody battle with her former husband made headlines in The Jewish Week. She's a former Satmar Hasidic Jew from Monsey, N.Y., who claimed her former husband abused her.
in 2013, her ex-husband's lawyer, Eric Thorsen, said his client “vehemently and unequivocally" denied the allegations of abuse.
Gribeluk, also known as Heidi Morris, was raised in a secular home and became religious at age 21. She claimed that Judge Sherri Eisenpress of Rockland County Family Court favored her ex-husband to maintain her three children's religious upbringing.
Her case became a rallying cry for religious parents who lost their children in custody fights.
Golland, her lawyer in the criminal case, said she has visitation rights with her children, citing it as one of her local ties.
Follow Steve Lieberman on Twitter: @lohudlegal
