Three Members Of Lev Tahor Sentenced To Jail Terms For 2018 Kidnapping Of Children

NEW YORK (VINnews) — Three members of the Lev Tahor cult were sentenced to prison this week for their roles in the 2018 kidnapping of two children.

“This was a horrific, horrendous, crime that was committed,” Judge Nelson Roman said on Friday during the sentencing of one of the defendants, Mordechai Malka.

The accused participated in the kidnapping of the children, aged 12 and 14, and transferred them from the US to Mexico in December 2018. Two months previously, their mother had escaped from Lev Tahor in Guatemala and reached New York, where she was granted custody of her children. Their father, a member of the cult, was forbidden to communicate with them.

Mordechai Malka as well as other members of the cult orchestrated the plan to kidnap the children back to Lev Tahor, using fake identities and costumes to smuggle them out of the country.

After a three-week search which included hundreds of local, federal and international security enforcement groups, the children were located in Mexico and returned to their mother in New York, although in March 2019 members of the cult tried to kidnap them again.

Prior to the sentencing, Mordechai Malka apologized for his role in the kidnapping but the judge dismissed his remarks, noting his lack of remorse during the trial itself, and sentenced him to 57 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

Earlier last week, the judge sentenced Matisyahu Moshe Malka (Mordechai’s brother) and Yaakov Rosner for their roles in the kidnapping. Rosner also expressed remorse for his role in the kidnapping as well as his newfound enlightenment about the cult’s dangerous practises. His words were apparently perceived as sincere by the judge who released Rosner on account of the time he has served since March 2021.

In contrast, Matisyahu Malka was sentenced to 66 months in prison.

Mordechai Malka’s brothers-in-law, the Weingarten brothers, will be facing trial in the near future. Two of them have already been extradited to the United States from Guatemala in order to face trial.

“I feel bad though,” said Lev Tahor survivor Mendy Levy, who escaped the cult several years ago. “Because Mordechai Malka was not really a bad guy. He was just forced to do what he did by the Weingartens, Nachman Helbrans and Mayer Rosner.”