Trio of brothers from Monsey convicted in Lev Tahor kidnapping plot

Three brothers who grew up in Monsey before joining Lev Tahor, a fringe sect of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, were convicted Wednesday in the 2018 kidnapping of two children whose mother had removed them from the group, including a 14-year-old new bride who the jury believed was taken so that she could resume sexual activity with her husband.

A jury in White Plains federal court took less than four hours to reject the claims of Shmiel, Yakev and Yoil Weingarten that the girl and her 12-year-old brother, identified in court as Jane and John Doe, were rescued from abusive treatment in New York and that reuniting the girl with her community and 20-year-old husband had nothing to do with sex.

How we got here: Four alleged leaders of extremist Jewish sect charged with kidnapping two kids in New York

They face up to 30 years in prison, including a minimum of 10 years on the charge of transporting a minor for sex. They were also convicted of conspiracy charges and international parental abduction. U.S. District Judge Nelson Roman scheduled sentencing for July 9.

The verdict marked a successful conclusion to the prosecution of nine Lev Tahor leaders and members in the case. Four others, including the group's leader Nachman Helbrans and Mayer Rosner, the groom's father, were convicted in a pair of trials and two others pleaded guilty, including Jacob Rosner, Jane Doe's husband.

Most recently: Brothers testify in Lev Tahor kidnapping trial

Calling Lev Tahor an "extremist" sect, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams hailed the verdict and said all the plotters had been held accountable.

"The defendants’ conduct — which included forced child marriages, physical beatings, and family separations — is unthinkable and has caused irreparable harm to children in their formative years," Williams said in a statement. "Whether in the name of religion or any other belief system, subjecting children to physical, sexual, or emotional abuse will never be tolerated by this Office.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jamie Bagliebter told the jury in her summation Tuesday that the case was serious but simple: people can't take children from a mother who has custody of them, she said, and you can't take a minor out of the country so that she can engage in sexual activity.

"You cannot break United States law just because you disagree with it," Bagliebter said.

Lev Tahor, Hebrew for 'pure heart', was founded in Israel in the 1980s by Shlomo Helbrans, the children's grandfather. The community sojourned the globe for decades, including from Quebec and Ontario to Guatemala a decade ago, moving each time the community ran afoul of child welfare or immigration authorities.

Helbrans drowned in Mexico in 2017 and Nachman took over.

Their daughter and sister, Sara, was married to a Lev Tahor leader and was upset her 13-year-old daughter, Jane Doe, was arranged to be married in 2018. The marriage occurred and Sara Helbrans was separated from her husband and children because she was expressing displeasure with the strict tenets implemented by her brother. She left the the community and Guatemala with three of her kids and went to Brooklyn.

In the fall of 2018, the father took Jane, John and their sixth child to an embassy in Mexico to get the kids new passports. But the authorities kept the children and they were sent to New York to be reunited with their mother. In November, Sara Helbrans obtained a Brooklyn Family Court order granting her custody of all the children and an order of protection barring the father from contacting them.

"Sara had lawful custody of her children. Period," Bagliebter told the jury. "No one, not her husband and certainly not these guys, had the right to take them from her."

The children were staying with their mother and four siblings at a home in Woodridge, New York, during the Sabbath of Chanukah in December 2018. Early on Saturday morning Dec. 8, a former Lev Tahor member, Shimon Malka, helped the girl and boy leave the house and connect with his brother, Shmiel Weingarten and Nachman Helbrans in a car outside.

The children were taken to a motel to change into secular clothing before being driven to the airport in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Helbrans checked them in using airlines tickets and passports in his own children's names. They took three flights that day before landing in San Antonio and were driven to Mexico in a cab.

The children were found 20 days later and returned to New York. Shmiel Weingarten acknowledged with pride his orchestration and participation in the removal of the children though insisted it wasn't kidnapping. His brothers were out of the country but were linked to the planning of the kidnapping and were in Mexico with the children in the aftermath.

The defendants, who represented themselves, insisted prosecutors had failed to prove any illegal intent when the children were taken. They claimed the court order was flawed because it was not in the best interest of the children. And they claimed to believe that the children had been abused so the removal was not a kidnapping but a rescue effort.

Most significantly they said, the intent was to return the children to where they wanted to be, in the Lev Tahor community. Yes they wanted to reunite Jane and Jacob - but that was about the marriage of two people who loved each other, they argued, not about underage sex.

Bagliebter said there was no distinguishing the two in Lev Tahor. Taking Jane back to her husband who she was expected to have sex with meant they were transporting a minor for sex. And jurors only had to believe that was one of the purposes, not the only one.

Shmiel Weingarten called a "distraction" the numerous ex-Lev Tahor members the prosecution called to detail the strict tenets of the group and make what defense witnesses claimed were false allegations of abuse. He said the most important witnesses were Jane and John, who the defense called, because they testified about the troubles they were having in New York and what John called their "bitter exile" from Lev Tahor.

Weingarten said it was Jane who told him she was abused and mistreated in New York and that she was eager to be taken back to the only community she knew.

"Jane is not responsible for what happened. This is not Jane's fault," Bagliebter told the jury. "Do not allow these adult men to deflect blame for their crimes onto a child."

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Lev Tahor kidnapping plot trial ends with 3 brothers convicted