UPDATE:: Jewish ‘cult’ members now facing lesser charges in alleged kidnap plotSeveral leaders of the Lev Tahor Cult have just been taken into police custody, YWN has learned exclusively.
Alleged members of the extremist Jewish group Lev Tahor are now facing lesser charges in the alleged kidnapping two Orthodox children from their mother in New York last year, according to an indictment unsealed this week.
The defendants were initially hit with federal kidnapping charges, which carry a ten-year mandatory minimum sentence.
But the new indictment shows that five men — Nachman Helbrans, Mayer Rosner, Aaron Rosner, Jacob Rosner and Matitya Moshe Malka — face just three counts of international parental kidnapping, which has a three-year maximum sentence, along with a related conspiracy charge.
Prosecutors allege the members of Lev Tahor, which translates to “Pure Heart” in Hebrew, kidnapped Yante Teller, 14, and Chaim Teller, 12, in December by disguising them and flying them out of an airport in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
They were apprehended in Mexico, in a joint operation between Interpol and the FBI. Police raided two out of three Lev Tahor owned properties in the country in the middle of the night.
Additionally, as YWN has previously reported, there are a few families of Guatemalans that became Geirim through Lev Tahor but eventually left the cult after learning first hand how horrific the lifestyle was. These families remained Frum Yidden and are living in Guatemala City. When police made the arrests in Mexico, a young child from one of these families was found to be in the Lev Tahor “safe house” in Mexico. This child has now been reunited with his mother in Guatemala.
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Charges may include: Kidnapping, sexual abuse, running a cult, extortion, intimidation, child abuse and many other charges.
YWN EXCLUSIVE: LEV TAHOR CULT LEADERS ARRESTED | Yeshiva World News
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