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’s most brutal prisons had attracted international attention, but 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. 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’s freedom, released a statement thanking “Sean Penn for his tireless work to free Jacob.” 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,’ Penn had been making plans to smuggle Ostreicher out of Bolivia by land, by air, or, if necessary, through the heating vents of a hospital. Read Linda Burstyn’s exclusive report on how Sean Penn helped a Brooklyn Hasidic man escape from a Bolivian prison: nymag.visitlink.me/OLrMWh