{"id":143644,"date":"2026-02-24T10:29:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T10:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/143644\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T10:29:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T10:29:30","slug":"how-sean-penn-saved-a-brooklyn-hasidic-man-stuck-in-bolivia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/143644\/","title":{"rendered":"How Sean Penn Saved a Brooklyn Hasidic Man Stuck in Bolivia"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n Sean Penn with Jacob Ostreicher in Palmasola prison.
\n Photo: STR\/AFP\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

Sean Penn always knew that rescuing Jacob Ostreicher from his years of Bolivian imprisonment would be difficult. Ostreicher, a then-52-year-old Hasidic businessman who had moved to the country from Brooklyn to manage a rice farm, got stuck there for two and a half years after he was accused of money laundering and criminal organization. His detainment in one of Bolivia\u2019s most brutal prisons had attracted international attention \u2014 ABC News\u2019 Nightline had run a segment about his incarceration; it was covered by the New York Times, the BBC, the Associated Press, and the Bolivian and Jewish press. It seemed like he would never get back to the States. Until suddenly, in December 2013, he returned. The Bolivian justice minister claimed Ostreicher had slipped away while out of prison on house arrest. Chaya Gitty Weinberger, Ostreicher\u2019s daughter, told the Times that her father had been \u201cdropped off in Pacific waters,\u201d then released \u2014 but only after her uncle had negotiated a ransom. A State Department spokesperson would only confirm to news organizations that Ostreicher was in the United States. What really happened remained a mystery, though there were some cryptic clues: New Jersey representative Chris Smith, who had testified in Congress to advocate for Ostreicher\u2019s freedom, released a statement thanking \u201cSean Penn for his tireless work to free Jacob.\u201d As it turned out, that tireless work was much more literal than anything previously reported. Over the span of a year, during which he starred in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, the actor had been making plans to smuggle Ostreicher out of Bolivia by land, by air, or, if necessary, through the heating vents of a hospital.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n April 2012 | After an American Hasidic man, Jacob Ostreicher, was detained for months without charges in a dangerous Bolivian prison \u2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n October 30, 2012 | \u2026 Sean Penn lobbied Bolivian president Evo Morales, a fan of the movie star, directly on his behalf.
\n Photo: Courtesy of Steve Moore (top); Juan Karita\/AP (Penn, Morales)\n <\/p>\n

Jacob Ostreicher grew up in the ultra-Orthodox Satmar communities of Williamsburg and Borough Park, insular stretches of city blocks known for black hats and strict rules. He learned Yiddish before English and was forbidden from reading secular books, watching TV, and going to the movies. He attended yeshiva and was observant of the religious laws. But he was a precocious and intensely curious youth, eager to explore beyond the bounds of his tight-knit sect. He\u2019d sometimes pop into city courthouses to watch cases being deliberated and dreamed of being a lawyer. As an adult, he learned how to fly single-engine planes, despite, or perhaps because of, his fear of heights. In his 20s, he went into his father\u2019s flooring business, where he succeeded as an extroverted salesman. He did well enough that by his 30s, he was driving a Jaguar and skiing in the Alps. He married and later divorced a woman he met through a matchmaker. Eventually, he got remarried to Miriam Ungar, a twice-divorced mother with three kids who was, Ostreicher says, the woman of his dreams. They had a happy marriage, five children between them, a strong community in Borough Park, grandchildren, and wealth.<\/p>\n

Until the 2008 stock-market crash. Seeing business dry up and his portfolio take a hit, Ostreicher consulted his money manager, a Swiss lawyer named Andr\u00e9 Zolty, on how to make an investment with big returns. Zolty\u2019s answer was, in a word, \u201crice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Global demand was high, Zolty said, and nowhere is the climate more perfect for growing than in Bolivia, where land is cheap and labor cheaper. He suggested Ostreicher invest in one of his ventures \u2014 a relatively new rice farm in Santa Cruz, a tropical area of the country known for lush lowlands with dependable rainfall and humidity. The farm was being managed by a Colombian lawyer in her early 30s named Claudia Liliana Rodr\u00edguez Espitia, who had interned at Zolty\u2019s firm in Switzerland as a graduate student. Zolty maintains Ostreicher and other investors in the enterprise were told it was risky or even dangerous because of Bolivia\u2019s political climate \u2014 a claim Ostreicher hotly disputes. But both of them had high expectations: If all went well, the biggest investors were practically guaranteed to make millions.<\/p>\n

Ostreicher was dazzled by the potential for a vast fortune. Bolivia was one of the few countries to welcome Jews during the Holocaust, and he began to see the project as a way to give back. He\u2019d create jobs for the Bolivian people, he thought. He\u2019d build schools.<\/p>\n

Soon, Ostreicher was taking an eight-hour flight followed by a seven-hour off-road Jeep ride to see the farm. He\u2019d told Ungar he was going just to look. Only some of the land, which spanned multiple parcels and totaled at least 50,000 acres, was cultivated, but the plan was to expand each year, which meant more rice, more profit, more wealth. As Rodr\u00edguez Espitia showed him around, Ostreicher began to imagine a kosher cattle ranch on parts of the property. He decided to put his savings in the roughly $26 million project. He returned to New York happy and confident. \u201cThis farm will change our lives,\u201d he told Ungar.<\/p>\n

As Ostreicher tells it, it was nearly two years before he came to believe that Rodr\u00edguez Espitia was stealing from the business. He told the AP in 2011 that she had skimmed millions of dollars from the venture, put her own name on many of the deeds, and paid for farmland with a check that bounced. Before anything could be done about it, she disappeared. (Rodr\u00edguez Espitia disputes this.)<\/p>\n

Ostreicher says he was frantic, but most of the investment was not in the bank; it was already planted in the ground. The investors could still recoup their losses as long as someone could oversee the harvest and get the books in order. Zolty put Ostreicher up for the job.<\/p>\n

It was tough work to get Ungar onboard. She was adamantly against the idea of the two of them moving semi-permanently to Bolivia to manage the farm, as was Ostreicher\u2019s father, a Holocaust survivor who ruled the family with an iron fist. Ostreicher pleaded with his wife. Yes, he acknowledged, neither of them knew much about agriculture or rice or South America. And no, they didn\u2019t speak Spanish. But Ungar was great at accounting and Ostreicher would buy a book on farming. It would be an adventure.<\/p>\n

He wore her down. In December 2010, the couple moved into a house in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra that served as the farm\u2019s office and koshered the kitchen. Zolty revoked Rodr\u00edguez Espitia\u2019s power of attorney (\u201cI made a big mistake to trust that woman,\u201d he told the AP in 2012). He put Ostreicher in charge of managing the investment. Ungar tackled the numbers, and Ostreicher set to work on the rice harvest. He says he convinced farmworkers who were threatening to walk off the job to stay and had freshwater wells dug in the fields. For the coming harvest, which he estimated would be 35 million pounds of rice, Ostreicher put in a massive order for burlap bags, each proudly stamped with the name of the new company: Coliagro. He also filed a police report against Rodr\u00edguez Espitia in March 2011 accusing her of fraud. (Rodr\u00edguez Espitia denies that she stole money from Ostreicher and says that her part of the work, sowing the rice, was done. She had traveled abroad, including to her residence in Switzerland. Later, she would return to Bolivia. She says she also filed her own police report accusing Ostreicher of stealing the rice she planted.)<\/p>\n

Around that time, an investigator began visiting the farm to ask questions; Ostreicher believed they were there to help with a case against Rodr\u00edguez Espitia. But the inquiries seemed to stray beyond the purview of Ostreicher\u2019s complaint. Concerned, Ostreicher contacted the U.S. charg\u00e9 d\u2019affaires, who \u201ctold me to tell them everything, show them everything, and they\u2019ll leave me alone,\u201d Ostreicher says. So he did, giving the authorities the location of the storage silos, receipts for the farm equipment, and details about the harvest, which was turning out to be even greater than anticipated \u2014 worth some $13 million. Ostreicher was satisfied when he learned of Rodr\u00edguez Espitia\u2019s arrest in May.<\/p>\n

On June 3, 2011, just before heading back to New York for the holiday of Shavuot, Ostreicher was asked to come to the office of a specialized police unit focused on drug trafficking to answer one last set of questions. This time the mood was different \u2014 hostile. Ostreicher was handcuffed and shoved against the wall. \u201cI\u2019m not the criminal,\u201d he shouted. His first call was to Ungar, who had already flown home for the holiday. Trying to keep the fear from his voice, he told her to call the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia. There was a misunderstanding, but she shouldn\u2019t worry. \u201cI\u2019ll be in New York in time for Shavuot. By Monday for sure,\u201d he told her.<\/p>\n

Ostreicher spent that night in a ten-by-ten-foot holding cell in Santa Cruz, bare except for a bucket brimming with human waste, its overflow coating the floor, and remained there for several days. He paced angrily back and forth, holding his pants up with both hands because the police had taken away his belt.<\/p>\n

An aide to the U.S. Embassy came to see him, trying not to gag at the smell. She brought small mercies: a towel to sit on and some fresh fruit to eat. What she couldn\u2019t bring was any hope that the U.S. Embassy could fix this. Bolivia\u2019s relationship with the U.S. had recently been deeply strained; President Evo Morales, a leftist ally of Venezuela strongman Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, had expelled the American ambassador in 2008 (but not all embassy staff) as well as Drug Enforcement Administration officials. And besides, as far as anyone in the U.S. knew, Ostreicher might have done something illegal.<\/p>\n

One of Ostreicher\u2019s Bolivian lawyers told him he would likely be freed as soon as he had a hearing but only if he paid a bribe. The money would be for the judge and others who needed to be \u201ctaken care of,\u201d Ostreicher remembers the lawyer explaining. Ostreicher pushed back, but his lawyer told him that if he didn\u2019t pay, he\u2019d get sent to prison, and Bolivian prisons could be deadly. Ostreicher got him the money. So he thought he must not have heard correctly when, the next day, sitting in a courtroom, his translator told him that the prosecution had accused Ostreicher of money laundering and criminal organization. There were no charges yet. While the prosecution assembled its case, Ostreicher would be sent to prison.<\/p>\n

Ostreicher was quickly learning that Rodr\u00edguez Espitia wasn\u2019t in trouble for complaints he\u2019d filed with police. She had been arrested on accusations of money laundering in connection with a Brazilian drug trafficker: Several of the parcels of farmland she had acquired and planted allegedly belonged to the criminal. (Years later, she was acquitted.) And Ostreicher was embroiled in the investigation.<\/p>\n

He was also learning that in Bolivia, if someone is arrested under the suspicion of money laundering, the government can seize the arrestee\u2019s assets \u2014 which, in this case, included thousands of tons of rice Ostreicher had harvested. Ostreicher\u2019s translator told him to stuff cash in his sock. In Palmasola prison, where Ostreicher was headed, you can buy your life, he said. No money, no life.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n October 31, 2012 | Penn\u2019s clandestine trip to the Bolivian prison where Ostreicher was being held was made public after guards leaked photos \u2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n December 12, 2012 | \u2026 Which brought global attention to the case.
\n Photo: STR\/AFP\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

At Palmasola, though police guard the perimeter, inmates run several of its demarcated sections, the largest of which resembles a village. The 5,000-odd prisoners are not just the cooks, the doctors, the landlords, and the janitors; they are the guards, the administrants of punishment, and sometimes the executioners. Those with the longest sentences take on \u201cgovernor\u201d roles \u2014 they make the rules everyone else has to operate by.<\/p>\n

Standing outside the barbed-wire walls of Palmasola that first day, Ostreicher anticipated he\u2019d be the only American and Jew inside. Certain he was about to be killed, Ostreicher called his wife to ask for forgiveness and say \u201cgood-bye.\u201d \u201cI told her we would never see each other again,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was the hardest phone call I\u2019ve ever made, before or since.\u201d<\/p>\n

The main processing guard looked at Ostreicher\u2019s paperwork and told him through his translator that he was being sent to a dangerous area of the prison. But if Ostreicher paid him $500, he\u2019d send him to a safer area. Ostreicher got him the $500. Did he want a cell, or did he want to live outside? $100. What about blankets, a pillow, and a mattress? $100 more. For an additional $50, Ostreicher could even have a TV.<\/p>\n

Another guard stepped in and tried to grab the one object Ostreicher had brought with him: his tefillin bag, which carried two small leather boxes containing Torah passages and which he used for prayer every morning. His father had given it to him when he was 13 years old. This was where Ostreicher drew the line. \u201cI told him I\u2019m not going in without my tefillin, so if he wants to take it, he might as well kill me now. I was so angry at God and myself. I told my interpreter to give the guy the rest of my money, which was $300,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

An early sleepless night was punctuated by screams that seemed to be coming from just a few feet away. The next morning, a man\u2019s lifeless body was sprawled on the ground near where Ostreicher slept, his neck slit. Ostreicher put on his tefillin and prayed to be as strong as his father was in Auschwitz and his mother in Bergen-Belsen. He beseeched God to give him the strength to live through the next few days until this horrible misunderstanding could be cleared up.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Embassy aide tried to negotiate a safer situation for him, convincing guards to let him sleep on the floor of the chapel within the prison. But when Ostreicher saw the cross on the chapel wall, he refused. \u201cI told her, \u2018Are you out of your freaking mind? I don\u2019t know why God put me here, but it\u2019s not to sleep under a cross,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Over the phone, Ungar begged him to change his mind. Their rabbi also tried to convince Ostreicher to sleep in the chapel if it would save his life. \u201c\u2009\u2018You think it\u2019s such a good idea, you come here and sleep under the cross,\u2019\u201d Ostreicher recalls saying. \u201cMy mother spent seven months staying alive in Bergen-Belsen. I\u2019m not staying alive under a cross.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Ungar and Zolty sent him money, which Ostreicher used to pay $1,700 up front and $250 per month in \u201crent\u201d for a better cell in a section of Palmasola called PC4. \u201cIt was still the worst place I\u2019d ever seen, but compared to where I was living, PC4 was a seven-star hotel,\u201d Ostreicher says. Cells were larger and cleaner, and there was an actual entry gate to the pavilion that surrounded them. Ostreicher remembers that the landlord of the pavilion, also a prisoner, paid another prisoner in cocaine to act as the doorman and guard. Ostreicher had a six-by-ten-foot cell with just enough room for him to pace. \u201cThat\u2019s all I did most of the day, pace or rock back and forth, shaking like a leaf,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

When Ostreicher did venture out, he would carefully count his steps. Thirty-nine steps to the shower stalls, where men were shooting up and having sex. Forty-seven steps to the entrance of the pavilion. One hundred and sixty steps to the front gate, where the police stood with guns. The counting was a survival tactic: At night, the transformer would often blow and Ostreicher would have to find his way back to his cell in the total darkness and screaming chaos that followed.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile in New York, Ostreicher\u2019s family was frantically trying to bring him home. Ungar was working with lawyers, compiling paperwork that she hoped would prove her husband\u2019s innocence. She also spent long stretches in Bolivia, paying bribes to the prison guards so she could bring Ostreicher bags of kosher food.<\/p>\n

Finally, on September 23, 2011, three and a half months into Ostreicher\u2019s incarceration, he had his first bail hearing. Ostreicher\u2019s lawyers came armed with thousands of pages of documents that they hoped would show the court that the farm was aboveboard. At first, it seemed like there would be a breakthrough: A judge ordered that Ostreicher\u2019s pretrial detention be terminated and that he be released on bail while the prosecution prepared formal charges.<\/p>\n

Ostreicher was sent back to Palmasola and waited to be released, but instead the judge revoked his own order without explanation. Soon after, the judge was appointed to a higher court. \u201cThat was the first time I realized there was major corruption going on,\u201d Ostreicher says. \u201cI didn\u2019t know the depth of it, I couldn\u2019t make sense of it, but I knew I was in some serious shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prosecutors\u2019 case, according to a 2013 indictment, alleged that both Ostreicher and Rodr\u00edguez Espitia were part of a scheme to launder money on behalf of the Brazilian drug trafficker Maximiliano Dorado and his brother. (Dorado, also known as \u201cGolden Boy,\u201d escaped from a Brazilian prison in 2001 while serving a sentence for drug trafficking, murder, and money laundering.) Prosecutors said that the Dorados used Rodr\u00edguez Espitia as a straw man, putting farmland and machinery under her name to conceal their ownership. Rodr\u00edguez Espitia then planted rice \u2014 and Ostreicher harvested it \u2014 on the drug trafficker\u2019s lands. Police had begun looking into the Dorados in December 2010, around the same time Ostreicher came to Bolivia to run the farm. After searching one of the Dorados\u2019 urban properties in an anti-narcotics operation, authorities launched a full-scale financial investigation that uncovered records and documents that prosecutors claimed linked Ostreicher and Rodr\u00edguez Espitia to the Dorados. As a result, they seized the properties, livestock, equipment, and rice that Ostreicher was managing. The indictment alleged that Ostreicher knew of the Dorado brothers\u2019 ties to narco-trafficking and still, as Zolty\u2019s emissary, authorized Rodr\u00edguez Espitia\u2019s transactions. Zolty was not charged in the indictment.<\/p>\n

But these formal charges against Ostreicher wouldn\u2019t come down until later \u2014 more than two years after his initial arrest. He says he was told almost nothing about what he was alleged to have done; in Bolivia, the government can hold a person without charges for 18 months. In practice, the lawyers told Ostreicher and his family, it could be much longer. Ostreicher and, separately, Rodr\u00edguez Espitia were imprisoned without understanding the full case against them.<\/p>\n

Steve Moore, a private investigator and former FBI agent, was alerted to Ostreicher\u2019s case by Ungar\u2019s son. Moore had become well known for his advocacy on behalf of Amanda Knox, whose wrongful conviction in Italy for the 2007 murder of her study-abroad roommate was overturned while Ostreicher was in prison. He flew to Bolivia to research the case. \u201cI saw right away that it was a scam,\u201d Moore says.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, they were prosecuting Jacob, or threatening to, for financial crimes. But they hadn\u2019t subpoenaed his bank records, which is the first thing you do when you\u2019re investigating a financial crime,\u201d says Moore, who compiled a report with his findings in June 2012. \u201cThe second thing was there was no intent to take him to trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

The farm machinery was seized, and millions of dollars of rice had been removed from the silos, an effort that would have required hundreds of trailer loads. \u201cThe totality of the circumstances convinced me that this was a government-sanctioned kidnapping,\u201d Moore says. \u201cI thought, Within six months, he\u2019s either going to be freed or dead, and I didn\u2019t see how we were going to get him out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore pretended to be Ostreicher\u2019s relative in order to visit him in prison. \u201cI\u2019ve been to a few scary places in my career, and Palmasola was right up there. It was like Lord of the Flies,\u201d Moore says. Ostreicher still remembers the sobering advice Moore gave him after his visit. \u201cHe said to me, \u2018Promise that you will do whatever you have to do to survive in this place,\u2019\u201d Ostreicher says. \u201cHe told me, \u2018You don\u2019t have to ever tell anyone what you did \u2014 not your wife or your rabbi nor in a book that you write. Just make me a promise that you\u2019ll do whatever it takes to get out of this hell vertical, not horizontal.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Ostreicher recalls being beaten viciously on Yom Kippur for being out of his cell after curfew, Jewish prayers playing in his earbuds as the blows fell. Another time, he was thrashed with rods, his blood soaking into ground already damp from the pummeled bodies of other men. During one beating, another prisoner intervened. \u201cHe offered to get me out of there. All I had to do was buy him a bag of coca leaves and then hire him at $10 a day to be my bodyguard,\u201d Ostreicher says. There was just one string attached: If Ostreicher was ever late with a payment, the man would kill him. It was a deal Ostreicher couldn\u2019t refuse.<\/p>\n

Not long after that, a fellow prisoner deliberately bumped into Ungar while she was visiting, which Ostreicher had been led to believe was a direct provocation that could not go unaddressed or the next bump would be with a knife. Ostreicher gave his bodyguard $100 to make sure he didn\u2019t have to see the guy again. \u201cWhen you\u2019re treated like an animal, you become an animal,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Two members of Congress visited Ostreicher and testified in U.S. hearings on his behalf, including Representative Chris Smith, who even flew to Bolivia in June 2012 for one of Ostreicher\u2019s bail hearings. Smith later told The Wall Street Journal that he witnessed the Bolivian Interior Ministry\u2019s director of legal affairs, Fernando Rivera Tard\u00edo, threatening to penalize the judge if he went forward with the hearing. The judge suspended it.<\/p>\n

After these court appearances, Ostreicher would be sent back to prison, where not even his bodyguard could protect him from raids by police. \u201cThey would march in, tear up your cell, walk all over your bed with wet, muddy boots, then make all the prisoners strip naked and bend over so they could probe our genitals with their sticks,\u201d he says. Occasionally, Ostreicher would get offers from the prosecution asking him to admit guilt, but he would refuse. One of his lawyers had told him that even if Ostreicher signed a document saying he was guilty, they wouldn\u2019t let him go. They could use the coerced confession to hold him indefinitely. The days were terrifying and endless. Thirty-nine steps to the bathroom. Forty-seven steps to the pavilion door. A hundred and sixty steps to the front gate.<\/p>\n

Fellow prisoners told Ostreicher that his only hope of getting out was if President Morales intervened on his behalf. However, Morales was a vocal critic of the U.S., so it seemed unlikely. Venezuelan president Ch\u00e1vez could pressure him; unfortunately, Ch\u00e1vez was even more critical of the U.S. than Morales.<\/p>\n

The only hope, as these prisoners saw it, was the one American whom Ch\u00e1vez liked quite a bit: the actor Sean Penn. Penn and Ch\u00e1vez had worked together on getting relief to Haiti after a 2010 earthquake left hundreds of thousands displaced on the island. \u201cI told my wife, \u2018If Hashem wants to get me out of this prison, he\u2019s going to have to call Sean Penn,\u2019\u201d Ostreicher says. He cold-called Penn\u2019s agent at CAA in Beverly Hills. The operator hung up on him. Ungar also tried calling. They hung up on her, too.<\/p>\n

By then, she had also made contact with officials at the Aleph Institute, a Jewish organization that provides support to incarcerated people. The director of constitutional advocacy at the organization, Rabbi Zvi Boyarsky, began to ask people at Shabbat dinners and Chabad-sponsored lunches, \u201cDoes anyone know Sean Penn?\u201d<\/p>\n

Everything changed after ABC\u2019s Nightline aired a segment in May 2012 with Terry Moran, who had flown to Bolivia to document Ostreicher\u2019s situation in Palmasola. Moran interviewed Ungar just outside the prison gates, asking what it felt like when she left after a visit. \u201cTorture,\u201d she said, tearing up. \u201cThe pain of watching him watch me leave \u2014 he stands behind the gate and he sees my anguish and he runs in to make it easier for me to leave. He\u2019s thinking of me, and he\u2019s the one suffering.\u201d Not caught on-camera was the moment guards discovered Moran\u2019s crew was filming. The team from ABC ran, but Ungar was caught. It was an agonizing two hours before she was brought to Ostreicher, sobbing in a way he\u2019d never seen before. She told him that the police warned her never to come back or they would throw her in jail, too. She had to say \u201cgood-bye\u201d for good.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter she stopped visiting me, I gave up on life,\u201d Ostreicher says. The couple still spoke on the phone, but their conversations became more sporadic and argumentative. It wasn\u2019t just the danger Ungar could no longer afford to put herself in. The way Ostreicher was changing scared her. He was hardening from the abuse, and his mental health was deteriorating. He was often drunk and grew his hair long like the toughest prisoners. Their growing estrangement \u201cwas more punishment than what the Bolivian government did to me,\u201d Ostreicher recalls. \u201cI was ready to pack it in. I didn\u2019t give a shit. I was hoping to die.\u201d Putting on his tefillin every day felt excruciating, such was his anger toward God. \u201cI told Him if He was truly the creator, then He should take me home,\u201d says Ostreicher.<\/p>\n

Certain he was going to die in prison, Ostreicher went on a hunger strike. It lasted for months. He became emaciated and developed a tremor. One day, down to 107 pounds and hallucinating, he heard a loud bang at his cell door. He had enough presence of mind to grab the knife he kept by his bed, though when he saw that it was a member of the disciplinary prison staff, he put the knife down. There would be no fighting back.<\/p>\n

It must be payback for the Nightline interview, he thought. Now he would be murdered; the only mystery was how. Would he have his neck slashed, or would he be beaten to death? Prisoners lined the walkway to watch as Ostreicher was hauled away. He was praying \u2014 praying that the end would be fast and merciful, praying his death could somehow mean something. But when the gate opened, the person standing on the other side was not his executioner. There instead, looking like the Messiah with a tan, was Sean Penn.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n December 12, 2012 | After over 20 hearings, Ostreicher was still detained without charges \u2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n May 20, 2013 | \u2026 And Penn testified on his behalf before Congress.
\n Photo: STR\/AFP\/Getty Images; Paul Morigi\/WireImage\/Getty Images (hearing)\n <\/p>\n

At a Shabbat lunch in Los Angeles after the Nightline episode came out, a man told Rabbi Boyarsky of the Aleph Institute that he didn\u2019t know Penn but he did know Mark Wahlberg\u2019s bodyguard. Maybe that would help? Which is how the rabbi ended up pleading Ostreicher\u2019s case, first to the bodyguard and then directly to Wahlberg, who agreed to give Penn a call. \u201cThe people who talked to Mark Wahlberg knew I had a relationship with Ch\u00e1vez,\u201d says Penn. \u201cWhat they didn\u2019t know was that around two weeks before, I had gone on a diplomatic visit to Bolivia and had a very simpatico meeting with President Morales himself.\u201d The two had gotten to know each other while Penn was working with Haiti as an ambassador-at-large.<\/p>\n

At 65, Penn is a two-time Oscar winner and a Hollywood elder statesman, an actor who has been called, many times in his career, one of the best in his generation. But he is also an idiosyncratic celebrity. He has flown to Ukraine to encourage soldiers and has bailed New Orleans residents out of floodwaters. To assist with disaster relief after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Penn lived for months in a tent, working to rehouse residents and get them medical care. His ad hoc disaster-relief nonprofit, now called CORE, overcame the optics of being a movie star\u2019s pet project to become a respected organization. In 2020, it set up early coronavirus testing sites throughout the country, including a massive pop-up operation at Dodger Stadium that could handle up to 7,500 patients a day.<\/p>\n

All the while, Penn has remained something of an ambassadorial thrill seeker, chain-smoking cigarettes and inserting himself into areas where American diplomacy can\u2019t reach.<\/p>\n

After hearing from Wahlberg, Penn spoke to Ungar, who put him in touch with Moore, the ex\u2013FBI agent, who laid out his findings and his theory of Bolivian corruption. Penn checked with contacts in the U.S. State and Treasury departments. Persuaded that Ostreicher\u2019s imprisonment was indeed an injustice, he made plans to fly to La Paz, Bolivia\u2019s administrative capital, immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Spanish is nonexistent today, and it was limited at the time,\u201d Penn says. \u201cWhat I was able to offer the situation was going to be based on having had a good, friendly connection with Morales. It wasn\u2019t going to be very effective on the phone.\u201d He also knew he had to act fast; Ostreicher\u2019s body was starting to fail as a result of his hunger strike.<\/p>\n

Morales and Penn kicked a soccer ball around and each made asks: Morales wanted the international community to legalize coca leaves, a product that has many medicinal uses but is also used to make cocaine. Opening legal markets for the leaf could help lift his country out of poverty, Morales said. He asked Penn to essentially become Bolivia\u2019s ambassador for coca leaves before the U.N. Penn let that possibility float as he asked about freeing Ostreicher. \u201cI told Morales, \u2018Last thing you want is to have an American die in your prison who\u2019ll later be proven innocent,\u2019\u201d Penn says. Morales gave Penn the use of one of his own military aircraft to fly to Palmasola that night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guy I\u2019d seen on Nightline no longer existed,\u201d Penn says of his first impression of Ostreicher. \u201cHe was a stick figure, starving and shaking. I told him, \u2018Look, I believe in your innocence and I\u2019ve spoken to President Morales and he believes you\u2019re innocent. I\u2019m going to get you out of here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Penn negotiated Ostreicher\u2019s release into a hospital and says he was assured by Morales that everything would be fixed. But Penn worried that those who stood to profit from the rice might be even more threatened by Ostreicher if he were outside the prison walls. He worried that \u201cany security detail that could be formed to protect Jacob in a hospital\u201d could harbor an infiltrator sent to kill him. It was at that point that Penn got in touch with Ch\u00e1vez. \u201cI said, \u2018Look, this guy needs to leave the prison tonight. It\u2019s real. He\u2019s gonna die,\u2019\u201d says Penn. Ch\u00e1vez flew his own officers to Bolivia to protect Ostreicher in the hospital.<\/p>\n

News that Penn had visited Ostreicher in Palmasola during his trip to Bolivia broke after El Deber, a newspaper based in Santa Cruz, published a series of photographs of Penn in the prison. Visitors generally can\u2019t bring cameras into Palmasola, but the journalist Guider Arancibia convinced an officer to leak him pictures of the encounter. (Officers accused of releasing the photos were later fired, Arancibia said.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat would have happened if I hadn\u2019t published those photos? Jacob would have died,\u201d says Arancibia, who continued to report on Ostreicher\u2019s case, including on negotiations happening between the U.S. government and Bolivia. \u201cIt was a worldwide scandal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actor returned to Malibu, confident that Ostreicher would soon be freed. But weeks later, he was again denied bail. Bolivian police arrived at the hospital to return the emaciated American to Palmasola. The Venezuelan officers stopped them. \u201cI was scared shitless. I knew that if I returned to Palmasola, it was a death sentence,\u201d says Ostreicher.<\/p>\n

Penn decided to change tactics. What if he broke Ostreicher out of the country himself? He says he ran the idea by new U.S. charg\u00e9 d\u2019affaires Larry Memmott, the embassies of two countries neighboring Bolivia, and a high-ranking State Department official in the region. \u201cAnd it was indicated, \u2018Don\u2019t tell us what you\u2019re doing, but go for it,\u2019\u201d Penn says.<\/p>\n

Accompanied by a professional extractor posing as a translator, Penn flew back to Bolivia for Ostreicher\u2019s next hearing. Together they visited Ostreicher at the hospital. \u201cThey had him in a guarded room, and it was like a single barbed-wire fence outside,\u201d says Penn. \u201cReal low security, which I liked, because I thought, Okay, we should do this soon if we\u2019re going to do it. Who knows if he\u2019s going to get returned to Palmasola.\u201d<\/p>\n

The visit cheered Ostreicher. \u201cSean sat next to me, put his hands on my hands, and looked me in the eye,\u201d he remembers. \u201cHe said, \u2018Jacob, listen to me very carefully. I will not stop until I get you home.\u2019\u201d While Penn poured drinks for both the patient and the guards, keeping them distracted, the extractor snooped around, mapping out a possible escape for Ostreicher through the heating vents.<\/p>\n

Penn accompanied Ostreicher to the hearing, wheeling the emaciated American, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, into the courtroom. \u201cI kept saying, \u2018You\u2019re going to go home tonight,\u2019\u201d Penn says. \u201cHe kept telling me I was wrong \u2014 that I was buying the whole charade.\u201d The case was remanded from an appeals panel back to the trial judge. Ostreicher was no closer to being free. \u201cIf it\u2019d been a theater, it would\u2019ve been a bad high-school play with the archvillains twirling their mustaches, telling their lies and laughing about how fucked they were able to make this guy,\u201d says Penn.<\/p>\n

Penn whispered into Ostreicher\u2019s ear that he could be smuggled out. Much to Penn\u2019s surprise, Ostreicher refused. \u201cThe things that happened in prison were dehumanizing, and he had lost it. So that\u2019s who I was dealing with,\u201d Penn says. Ostreicher had also become fixated on seeking justice. \u201cJacob told me, \u2018I\u2019m going to get my money back and see these guys go to prison,\u2019\u201d Penn says. \u201cI said to him, \u2018If that changes, let me know.\u2019 I had a life back home. I have two kids of my own. I couldn\u2019t keep doing this if he didn\u2019t even want to go home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, suddenly, Ostreicher appeared to be vindicated. Perhaps in part because of Penn\u2019s advocacy, which he would take all the way to Capitol Hill, a rift seemed to grow in the Bolivian government. In November 2012, while Ostreicher was still in the hospital, the country\u2019s interior minister, Carlos Romero, announced in a press conference that there was a vast extortion ring within the government and that Ostreicher\u2019s case had led to the first arrests in Romero\u2019s effort to dismantle it. According to court documents, a network of members of the judiciary and the public prosecutor\u2019s office had conspired to keep Ostreicher in prison while other government officials \u2014 from DIRCABI, the agency in charge of seized assets \u2014 sold thousands of tons of rice from the farm he managed. (One of the arrested officials was accused of receiving nearly $10,000 in illicit proceeds from the sale.) Still others had demanded that Ostreicher pay them bribes in exchange for his freedom. The so-called ringleader was Fernando Rivera Tard\u00edo, the Interior Ministry\u2019s director of legal affairs, who Congressman Smith testified had verbally intimidated a judge at one of Ostreicher\u2019s hearings.<\/p>\n

Some 40 people in and outside the government would eventually be implicated as more details about la red de extorsi\u00f3n and its victims were published in the news. The AP called it the biggest scandal ever to face the country\u2019s judicial system. Like many other implicated officials, Rivera Tard\u00edo pleaded \u201cguilty\u201d before going on trial, though he had maintained his innocence. (His reasoning: Serving a prison sentence would surely be easier than enduring the uncertainty of pretrial detention.) He was sentenced to three years in prison.<\/p>\n

Ostreicher quickly became one of the most recognizable men in Bolivia, his photograph splashed across newspapers. His long ponytail, camouflage hat, and reddish beard became emblematic of the case.<\/p>\n

By the time his next court hearing rolled around, Ostreicher recalls, his legal team felt confident that he\u2019d soon be released. The arrests in the past months didn\u2019t technically absolve him, but they appeared to show high-ranking officials had corrupt motivations for imprisoning him. The lawyers flew Ostreicher\u2019s wife in, thinking it might help his chances. The judge, Eneas F\u00e1tima Gentili \u00c1lvarez, ruled that he could post bail, which meant he could trade his six-by-ten cell at Palmasola for house arrest. Guards stationed outside would limit his freedom, and Ostreicher would have to pay their salaries.<\/p>\n

That night, December 18, 2012, was the first time in a year and a half Ostreicher and his wife were together outside prison, but they couldn\u2019t have felt more far apart. She wanted him to try to escape \u2014 it would be much easier to do so from house arrest in Santa Cruz de la Sierra than from within the prison. She had worked so hard on his behalf. But again, he refused. She accused him of caring more about money than about her. He accused her of not understanding his need for justice. The next morning, she flew back to New York and he understood that his marriage was perhaps permanently damaged.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just that Ostreicher wanted to reclaim the rice. He was descending into a kind of madness. Was he trying to relive the Holocaust, to fight back in a way that his parents never could? It seemed like the struggle itself was what gave his life meaning. Memmott, the charg\u00e9 d\u2019affaires, describes going to have dinner with Ostreicher during that time and Ostreicher pointing at a neighbor\u2019s antenna, telling him, \u201cSee that antenna? That\u2019s the one the CIA is using to broadcast messages into my brain telling me to kill myself.\u201d Memmott was alarmed. He told Ostreicher that he was in charge of everything the U.S. was doing in Bolivia and he knew of no such thing. Ostreicher shook his head: \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what you\u2019d tell me if what I was saying were true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ostreicher was also obsessed with the investigation into the alleged extortion ring. \u201cPeople back home thought I was a drug dealer,\u201d he says. He testified in court and joined Bolivian TV shows to talk about his case; it seemed like the only way to clear his name.<\/p>\n

Then, one day, Ostreicher called Penn from house arrest: \u201cIf there was ever a movie made about this crazy story, would you promise to play me?\u201d Only after Penn agreed, humoring him, did the prisoner finally say, \u201cOkay \u2014 then get me the fuck out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n December 13, 2013\u00a0| A former Marine helped Ostreicher escape by disguising him as her husband, and insisted the two take Polaroids together as part of their cover.\n <\/p>\n

\n December 13, 2013\u00a0| A former Marine helped Ostreicher escape by disguising him as her husband, and insisted the two take Polaroids together as part of… more
\n December 13, 2013\u00a0| A former Marine helped Ostreicher escape by disguising him as her husband, and insisted the two take Polaroids together as part of their cover.\n <\/p>\n

Sylvia Black remembers the December morning in 2013 when they smuggled Ostreicher out of the country as a mild one. Five feet tall with a wide smile and a sharp, no-nonsense attitude, Black (a pseudonym) was a private investigator who had recently married her second husband, Bill Stewart (also not his real name). Both had served in the military and worked overseas in surveillance and countersurveillance. Black had some expertise in South America; both had assisted on rescue operations for people trapped in foreign countries.<\/p>\n

When they heard from a friend at \u201cthe other State Department,\u201d or CIA, that there was someone who needed help getting someone out of Bolivia and \u201cthe State Department wouldn\u2019t help but also wouldn\u2019t interfere,\u201d she knew the subtext of the mission. If the pair were caught, they\u2019d be on their own. The job would be funded in large part by the victim\u2019s family. The couple agreed to help.<\/p>\n

Ostreicher had been given detailed instructions, and he tried to follow them carefully.<\/p>\n

To start, he told his government minders that he was going to fly to La Paz to pick up kosher food for the week, something he was routinely allowed to do under house arrest. He gave the housekeeper the rest of the day off before leaving for the plane.<\/p>\n

Once in town, he went to Jewish community hub Chabad, picked up food, then went to the park where Black was waiting. He saw her wearing a round hat, red shirt, and blue pants as planned. The two made eye contact. She started walking.<\/p>\n

When they got to the hotel room where Stewart was waiting, Ostreicher was hysterical. He feared it was only a matter of time before the police came running. They might already be on their way. Black needed to keep him focused. If one of the most recognizable men in Bolivia was going to escape unnoticed, he had to look like someone else \u2014 and in this case, that someone else was Stewart. Black and Stewart had created a falsified visa application with a doctored image that overlaid photos of Stewart with Ostreicher\u2019s face. Ostreicher would use Stewart\u2019s passport to get over the border.<\/p>\n

While Stewart quizzed Ostreicher on his assumed birth date; address; and parents\u2019, brothers\u2019, and sisters\u2019 names, Black got to work on his disguise. Like all Hasidic men, Ostreicher had payess, or sidelocks, that had not been cut since he was 3 years old. They had to go. \u201cI said, \u2018I can\u2019t cut them,\u2019\u201d Ostreicher says. \u201cBut Bill said, \u2018If you don\u2019t match my passport, you\u2019re not leaving this room.\u2019\u201d They were cut. Same with the ponytail Ostreicher had become so attached to: His head had to be shaved, makeup applied to his newly revealed scalp. His beard was grayed, and he was given new glasses and clothes. All the while, he was practicing: \u201cMy name is Bill Stewart. I\u2019m from Lincoln, Nebraska. I was born on May 14, 1962.\u201d Ostreicher and Black would be posing as a married couple on a backpacking trip, so Stewart insisted on taking Polaroid photos of them together. She kept the photos in her purse to bolster their cover story.<\/p>\n

Back in Malibu, Penn spent the day pacing and smoking. He was trying to monitor the operation from his den as best he could but had very limited visibility. \u201cIf needed, we had a plane and pilot on standby,\u201d he says. But the plan with Black was overland and depended, in large part, on luck. \u201cThe professionals had taken over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once Black was out of the hotel and in a car with Ostreicher, she had her hands full keeping him calm. The chloroform she had with her wouldn\u2019t be useful. Ostreicher needed to be awake and present for his cover to work. But she had given him a water bottle filled with vodka in hopes it would subdue his panic. And now, drinking and sobbing about his relationship with Ungar, Ostreicher was overwhelmed by the escape and what awaited him in freedom. He said he wouldn\u2019t leave, terrified that his maid and lawyer might be blamed for his escape. Black told Ostreicher they would say he had been kidnapped.<\/p>\n

Finally, the car got to the Peruvian border. They got out, and after Ostreicher used Stewart\u2019s passport, Black sent it back to her husband with the driver, hiding it in a book. Black and Ostreicher went to a local airport for a flight that would take them to Lima. There, Black handed \u201cthe package\u201d over to U.S. Embassy staff, who, she understood, would get him safely on a plane to the States. Penn had tipped off U.S. officials in Lima to Ostreicher\u2019s arrival. \u201cOnce they knew it was happening, it became important to them,\u201d he says. \u201cThey had an American coming to their border, and they had people there, and they were helpful.\u201d (In a statement, a State Department spokesperson said, \u201cAs the Department told the media at the time, the U.S. Government did not have anything to do with Jacob Ostreicher leaving Bolivia.\u201d) Not until after he had taken off did Ostreicher find out he wasn\u2019t going back to New York \u2014 he was flying to Los Angeles, where Penn was waiting.<\/p>\n

Ostreicher sat in first class suspended in a state of despondency. He\u2019d left New York a proud, wealthy man with a strong marriage, respected in his community. Now he was returning physically diminished and psychologically broken. He had no idea if he could save his marriage or if he would face a community that might look at him with suspicion for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n

As he got off the plane, Ostreicher saw Penn waiting for him in the breezeway along with armed guards from Homeland Security and TSA. Penn ushered Ostreicher into a car, where a doctor was waiting, and the group headed to a hotel in Santa Monica, where Ostreicher could recuperate and hide from reporters. When the press eventually tracked them down, Penn was decisive about the next move. \u201cSean said to me, \u2018My house is your house,\u2019\u201d says Ostreicher. \u201cI slept all day long, and Sean would come over and speak to me and rub my back and tell me everything was going to be okay: \u2018Hang tight, it\u2019s all good.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n Back in the States, the Ostreicher was buoyed by Penn\u2019s friends, including Robert Downey Jr., who sent Ostreicher a box of clothes.<\/p>\n

After Penn moved Ostreicher temporarily into his Malibu home, he offered him therapists and experts in addiction to combat the heavy drinking, which hadn\u2019t ceased. Friends including Danny Trejo and Robert Downey Jr. worked in shifts to talk with Ostreicher or watch over him. At one point, a big box arrived filled with Gucci pants, shirts, sweaters, suits, and coats exactly in Ostreicher\u2019s size, along with a Harry Winston watch. The note: \u201cThis is not charity. It\u2019s about lookin\u2019 good for \u2018the comeback.\u2019 Much respect, Robert.\u201d \u201cWhen I got that box, I cried like a child,\u201d says Ostreicher. \u201cIn Palmasola, I\u2019d seen the worst of humanity. But now I\u2019d also seen great compassion and bravery. From Sean, for sure, but also from Sylvia and Bill. From my lawyers in Santa Cruz. From Steve Moore, who\u2019d testified on my behalf so many times, and Larry Memmott, because he kept my escape secret. And here, again, from Robert Downey Jr.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Ostreicher was heartbroken. Ungar knew of his return but wouldn\u2019t talk to him and has not spoken to him since. (She did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.) Penn urged his guest to allay his suffering by returning to synagogue. \u201cI said to Sean, \u2018Who are you, the agnostic, telling me what to do? I\u2019m not ready to meet God yet. I\u2019m not going,\u2019\u201d Ostreicher says. But Penn insisted on going to services with him and holding the prayer book. When the congregation started to sing \u201cL\u2019Cha Dodi\u201d to welcome the Sabbath, a prayer Ostreicher had recited thousands of times before, the wall he\u2019d had to build around his heart began to crumble. \u201cI started breaking up with tears and crying,\u201d Ostreicher says. \u201cSean said, \u2018You\u2019re going to feel better about yourself, Jacob. Just keep on praying.\u2019 I was so incredibly moved by this agnostic guy giving me the courage to pray to God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slowly, Ostreicher started to heal. He came to believe his experience in Bolivia had deepened his faith. \u201cI realized that when I gave up on Hashem, I wanted to die,\u201d he says. \u201cI realized whatever is going on is much bigger than I can understand. I stopped asking the question and just stayed the course. That\u2019s what kept me alive.\u201d Chaya Gitty Weinberger, his daughter, flew to Los Angeles with her children to see him. \u201cI told Sean, \u2018I can\u2019t see them because I don\u2019t have a white shirt.\u2019 So Sean gave me one,\u201d Ostreicher says. \u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019ll need a black suit,\u2019 so he took me into his walk-in closet with many different suits and said, \u2018Jacob, pick one of them.\u2019 I told him, \u2018I can\u2019t see them without a black hat.\u2019 He said, \u2018I\u2019ll be right back.\u2019 And he jumped into his pickup truck and comes back with six different hats. He said, \u2018One of them must be the right one. Now, come on. Let\u2019s go meet your grandkids.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

When Ostreicher\u2019s grandchildren saw him, they didn\u2019t recognize him. \u201cI stood in the middle of the room and said to them, \u2018Do you want to hear an interesting story?\u2019\u201d Ostreicher remembers. \u201c\u2009\u2018Do you know there was a man who was very strong and who wasn\u2019t afraid of anyone?\u2019 They all nodded, and I said, \u2018This is the man, Sean Penn. Do you want to see how strong he is?\u2019 And I said to Sean, \u2018Please, go down on your knees.\u2019 So right there in the middle of the room, Sean went down on his knees. I called out to my grandkids, \u2018Do you want to feel his biceps?\u2019\u201d One by one, they crept over to the Oscar winner kneeling on the floor and felt his biceps.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n May 8, 2018 | Once back in the States, Ostreicher lived with the movie star temporarily.
\n Photo: Courtesy of Linda Burstyn\n <\/p>\n

The charges that were eventually filed against Ostreicher, Rodr\u00edguez Espitia, and the Dorado brothers in the money-laundering case came down two weeks after Ostreicher fled the country. The Bolivian government declared him a fugitive, and a top minister accused the U.S. government of orchestrating his escape. Morales resigned in 2019. \u201cThis administration has not considered making any value judgments about a situation that occurred under a previous administration,\u201d a source in the Bolivian government says, though they would not confirm whether there is a current extradition request for Ostreicher. Rodr\u00edguez Espitia, who spent more than a year and a half in various prisons, was eventually acquitted, in 2024, by a three-judge panel. Her lawyers had argued that she, too, was a victim of the extortion ring and that although she had a business relationship with Maximiliano Dorado, she was unaware of his criminal record. None of the banks her money moved through had ever flagged any transaction as suspicious. \u201cHe should have stayed and proven what he said because he did a lot of damage to me and the hundreds of families who received a salary thanks to us,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez Espitia says of Ostreicher. She and Zolty are fighting to regain assets still entangled with the government. They now say they plan to hold a vote with investors, including Ostreicher, on whether to sell the land. Hearing this infuriated Ostreicher. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want to be in the same country as these people again, let alone in another business deal,\u201d he says. \u201cThis whole thing is completely insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n New York Magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Penn with Jacob Ostreicher in Palmasola prison. Photo: STR\/AFP\/Getty Images Sean Penn always knew that rescuing Jacob…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[60262,98,100,99,40123,425,60263,9,24,2409,63,60261],"class_list":{"0":"post-143644","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-bolivia","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","11":"tag-brooklyn-news","12":"tag-diplomacy","13":"tag-foreign-policy","14":"tag-hollywood-diplomacy","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-new-york-magazine","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-sean-penn"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}