The brothers, who emerged as leaders within the extremist Jewish cult, received their sentences on Tuesday, with Shmiel and Yakov Weingarten facing 14 years each, and Yoil Weingarten receiving a 12-year term, as reported by the Rockland/Westchester Journal News.
US District Judge Nelson Roman handed down these sentences after the brothers were convicted in March on charges including transporting a minor for sexual purposes, conspiracy, and international parental abduction. They were the final defendants to face trial in the case, which involved a total of nine suspects.
Among those previously convicted was Nachman Helbrans, the leader of Lev Tahor, who received a 12-year prison sentence in 2022 for similar charges related to kidnapping and transporting minors for illicit purposes.
The victims, identified as Jane and John Doe in court proceedings, were among six children of Sara Helbrans, daughter of Lev Tahor’s late founder Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans. The family had relocated to Guatemala in 2018 after leaving Canada amid child welfare investigations involving the sect.
The abduction plot unfolded when plans were made for Sara’s 13-year-old daughter to marry Jacob Rosner, then 19 years old. Sara objected but was unable to prevent the marriage, leading to her estrangement from the community and separation from her family. She eventually left Lev Tahor with three of her children and resettled in Brooklyn.
In late 2018, during a visit to Mexico to obtain new passports, Jane, John, and another sibling were seized by authorities and returned to their mother in New York. Following a Family Court order granting Sara custody and barring the children’s father from contact, attempts to challenge this decision failed.
Subsequently, the Weingarten brothers became involved in a conspiracy to abduct Jane and John. In December 2018, during a Hanukkah celebration in the Catskills, the children were taken from Sara’s custody by Nachman Helbrans, Shmiel Weingarten, and another sect member. They were then transported to Pennsylvania and subsequently to Mexico via multiple flights accompanied by Helbrans.
Authorities finally intervened when police raided a house in Mexico on December 18, 2018, leading to the arrests of Helbrans and Jacob Rosner, but the children were not immediately found as they were hiding. It took nine days before Shmiel and Yoil Weingarten were apprehended, and the children were safely recovered.
