NEW YORK (VINnews) — Two members of the Lev Tahor cult, Mordechai Malka and Matisyahu Malka, have been found guilty in a US federal court of plotting to kidnap a 14-year-old girl and her 12-year-old brother from their mother. The two were convicted of kidnapping at the White Plains court after a three-week trial by jury.
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The accused men participated in the kidnapping of the children in December 2018. They transferred the children, Yenta and Chaim Teller, from the US to Mexico. Prior to this, the mother of the children had escaped from the Lev Tahor enclosure in Guatemala and arrived in the US in November 2018. At this point a Brooklyn family court gave the mother sole custody over the children and forbade their father, a senior member of the cult, from communicating with them.
The indictment stated that after the mother escaped to New York, Mordechai Malka and other members of the cult devised a plan to return the children to their community. In the middle of a night in December 2018, the accused kidnapped the children and transferred them via various states to Mexico. The kidnappers used disguises, costumes, false travel documents and coded apps to perpetrate their plan, which was performed on Shabbos and involved Shabbos desecration.
At the time of the kidnapping, the cult sought asylum in Iran. After a three-week search involving hundreds of local law enforcement officers as well as federal and international police, the children were located in Mexico and returned to their mother in New York. However in March 2019 members of Lev Tahor attempted again to kidnap the children and Lev Tahor leader Nachman Helberantz tried to kidnap another child.
Mordechai Malka, aged 27 from Guatemala and Matisyahu Malka, aged 30, were indicted for plotting an international kidnapping, using illegal ID and illicitly entering a security section of an airport, crimes which carry a five-year sentence.
Mordechai Malka was also charged for international kidnapping to a parent and attempted kidnapping to a parent, crimes which carry a three-year sentence.
The day this cult is eliminated from Klal Yisroel, the leaders imprisoned, and the victims rescued, there should be the equivalent of a Yom Tov, to be celebrated by Torah Jews world over.
Shavua Tov! I dont condone any of this kidnapping and or brainwashing kids. But you seem to have named them a “cult” dont seem to report with the same Gusto on the Ger kids that are either brainwashed or kidnapped away from their parents, furthermore, the little reporting that you do, you have never called “Chasidus Ger” a cult. Please explain????
They got off easy
What’s that shaigitz in the picture doing with a smartphone? Pheh.
It seems they were found guilty on the same day we lained Lo Signove which is specifically meant to forbid kidnapping.
ger is also kidnapping children.