(JTA) — The family of Brooklyn real estate developer Menachem Stark raised the reward for information about his murder.
Stark’s family contributed $50,000 to the reward, with the New York Police Department offering an additional $20,000 and the NYPD Crime Stoppers program adding $2,000.
“We have increased the reward in the hopes that anyone and everyone who knows anything comes forward,” Rabbi David Niederman, executive director of United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, said in a statement. “There are seven orphans in Brooklyn, and a loving grieving wife – and we hope and pray there will be justice.”
Stark’s body was found Jan. 3 in a dumpster on Long Island some 16 miles from his office in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Stark had been kidnapped the previous evening outside his Williamsburg office. He reportedly was suffocated before his body was placed in the dumpster outside a Great Neck gas station and burned, according to police.
Video footage taken from his office reportedly showed Stark being taken into a van after a struggle outside his office.
Police on Wednesday released a surveillance video showing a suspect in the kidnapping, the New York Post reported.
Police believe Stark may have been squashed to death when kidnappers sat on his chest to subdue him after he was abducted. Police also believe Stark, 39, was already dead when his body was set alight in the dumpster.
