Lawsuit claims boy kidnapped to boot camp

NEW YORK, March 25 (UPI) -- A lawsuit claims that a prominent Orthodox Jewish couple in New York effectively kidnapped their son to send him to a Jamaican boot camp.

Advocates for 16-year-old Isaac Hersh say that his parents lured him back to Brooklyn under false pretenses last summer, the New York Daily News reported. He thought he was to be given a job but instead was sent to Tranquility Bay.

Isaac had been living with a foster family, also Orthodox, in Texas.

Joshua Ambush, a Maryland lawyer who has filed suit on the teenager's behalf, describes Tranquility Bay as a "modern-day concentration camp."

Isaac's father, Michael, heads Hatzalah, a volunteer ambulance organization that serves the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn. Hatzalah released a statement saying it would monitor the legal proceedings.

On its Web site, Tranquility Bay describes itself as a "specialty boarding school."