Weingarten brothers sentenced to prison in Lev Tahor kidnapping

Three brothers from Monsey who became leaders of the controversial Lev Tahor sect of ultra Orthodox Judaism were sentenced Tuesday to at least a dozen years in prison for their roles in the brazen kidnapping of a 14-year-old and her brother six years ago so they could be returned to the group and the girl could resume her underage marriage.

Each brother defiantly proclaimed they had followed their Jewish faith in "rescuing" the children. And the victim read a statement expressing support for the brothers and urging leniency from U.S. District Judge Nelson Roman before he imposed prison terms of 14 years for Shmiel and Yakov Weingarten and 12 years for Yoil Weingarten.

The brothers, who were convicted in March of transporting a minor for sex, conspiracy and international parental abduction, were the last of nine defendants sentenced in the case.

Jane and John Doe, the names used in court, were two of six children that Sara Helbrans — the daughter of Lev Tahor's late founder Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans — had with another leader of the group. In 2018 they were living in Guatemala, where the Lev Tahor community had moved after fleeing from child welfare investigations in Canada.

When plans were made for her 13-year-old daughter to marry 19-year-old Jacob Rosner, Sara balked but could not prevent the wedding and she soon became ostracized from the community and separated from her family. She left the group with three of her children, and moved to Brooklyn.

In the fall of 2018, when her husband took Jane, 12-year-old John and the sixth child to Mexico to get new passports, the children were taken by authorities and sent to their mother in New York. That November she obtained a Family Court order granting her custody of the children and prohibiting the father from contacting them.

Efforts to fight the court order were unsuccessful and the Weingartens then got involved in the plot to kidnap Jane and John.

Early on a Sabbath morning, Dec. 8, 2018, while Sara and her children were at a home in Woodridge, NY in the Catskills celebrating Hanukkah, the two children were led out of the house to meet Sara's brother, Lev Tahor leader Nachman Helbrans, Shmiel Weingarten and another member of the community.

Before that, the men had obtained secular clothing for themselves and the children. The children were taken to a hotel to change and then driven to the airport in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Nachman Helbrans then accompanied them on three flights that day, the last one to San Antonio, where they got a ride across the border into Mexico.

Once they made it to Mexico the children were kept in a hotel and then in a house. The house was raided by police on Dec. 18, 2018, and Helbrans and Mayer and Jacob Rosner were arrrested. But the children had been hiding and were not found. Shmiel and Yoil Weingarten then took the children, who were not recovered until nine days later when authorities found them and arrested the two Weingarten brothers.

The children were reunited with their mother in Brooklyn. Yakov Weingarten was involved in an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap Jane there three months later.

Nachman Helbrans was previously sentenced to 12 years in prison, as was Mayer Rosner, the father of Jacob Rosner, who was sentenced to 38 months. Two cousins who were members of the sect and participated in the kidnapping were sentenced to 57 and 66 months, and a relative of the Rosners who helped in the conspiracy from his home in Brooklyn was sentenced to time served.

Sentencing guidelines that Roman had to consider but was not bound by called for 30 years to life in prison for each of the Weingartens and probation officers recommended 15 3/4 years in prison for each brother.

The prosecution acknowledged that a guideline sentence would have been too harsh considering the sentences Helbrans and Mayer Rosner are serving so they simply asked for more than 12 years for each of the Weingartens, citing their role in the kidnapping as well as perjured testimony by Shmiel and Yakov and obstruction of justice by all three brothers.

In a sentencing memo, prosecutors called the Weingartens' conduct "deeply troubling". They said they have shown no remorse for their actions and their insistence that the kidnapping was really a rescue suggested they would repeat their crimes if given the chance.

"The Government has no confidence that the Weingartens will not return to arranging child marriages and kidnapping escapees from Lev Tahor the day they leave prison," the prosecutors wrote. "In fact the defendants and the string of co-defendants who came into court and testified on their behalf continued to defend their practice of underage marriage."

Shmiel Weingarten, who Assistant U.S. Attorney Jamie Bagliebter called the "project manager" of the kidnapping plot, said the brothers' act of compassion was twisted by prosecutors who sought to defame Lev Tahor and its members' way of life.

He said that justice would eventually prevail.

"My faith, my family, my community give me strength," he told Roman. "I acted righteously in helping those children. (The prosecution's) efforts to break our community are in vain."

When he was finished, he asked that Jane Doe, sitting in the gallery with her husband and brother, be allowed to speak.

Rather than offer a victim impact statement, she pleaded with Roman to "please set them all free," saying they were the only ones who had helped her through a traumatic time when she was taken out of the Lev Tahor community. She said the brothers had already suffered enough, as had their innocent children, and that she felt like she was also being sentenced with them.

"The longer they suffer, the longer I suffer," she told the judge. "Their freedom is my freedom."

Yoil Weingarten told the judge his actions were not contrary to the law but were "rooted deeply in my faith and my heritage." He expressed pride that Jane had found him in her time of need and that being "the vessel of God's mercy is an honor I cherish deeply."

Yakov Weingarten said he has been wrongly convicted like his father, Israel Weingarten, who remains in prison for a 2009 conviction for sexually abusing one of his daughters for years.

He complained of prosecutors' "mission to dismantle an innocent holy Jewish community" and thanked God for "guiding me through the trial of my faith."

"I take solace that God's justice will ultimately prevail," he said.