Child Marriage Prosecution Opinion as to the Lev Tahor Ultra-Orthodox Group, Described by Some as "Jewish Taliban"
From the start of Judge Nelson Román's (long) opinion, in
U.S. v. Helbrans (S.D.N.Y.):
This case involves the removal of two minors … from their
Mother in New York, by members of Lev Tahor, an "ultra-orthodox Hasidic
Jewish community currently in Guatemala," of which the Mother and the
Minors were previously a part. Defendants Nachman Helbrans … and Mayer Rosner
("Rosner")… are members of Lev Tahor charged in a six-count
superseding indictment for their involvement in the removal of the Minors with
(1) conspiracy to transport a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual
activity, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2423(a), (e); (2) conspiracy to travel
with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(b)
and (e); (3) conspiracy to commit international parental kidnapping, unlawfully
use a means of identification, and enter by false pretenses the secure area of
an airport, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371; and (4) two counts of
international parental kidnapping, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1204, in
connection with a December 2018 kidnapping. (Superseding Indictment
("S2"), ECF No. 229.) Helbrans is also charged with an additional
count of international parental kidnapping in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1204 in
connection with a March 2019 attempted kidnapping. Defendants' requests to
represent themselves pro se were granted by this Court following in-person
hearings in February 2021. A trial of Helbrans and Rosner is scheduled to
commence on October 18, 2021.
The Government has moved in limine: (1) for the admission at
trial of (A) testimony regarding instances of uncharged criminal conduct,
wrongs, or bad acts in connection with the rules within the Lev Tahor
community; (B) statements by co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy
which are admissible pursuant to Rule 801(d)(2)(E) and/or statements against
the declarants' penal interest under Rule 804(b)(3); and (C) certain business
records on the basis of written declarations pursuant to Rule 803(6) and
902(11); and (2) to preclude the defense from raising irrelevant arguments at
trial including: (A) historic persecution of Lev Tahor by the United States and
Israel, (B) discriminatory prosecution based on their religious views, (C) that
because the marriage between Minor-1 and J. Rosner was predicated on their
religious beliefs, it cannot form the basis for a criminal charge; (D) that
their conduct must be excused because the Minors consented to traveling with
the Defendants out of the country and Minor-1 consented to have sex with an
adult; and (E) the family court order giving the Mother custody of the Minors
was fraudulently obtained.
Defendants have also moved in limine, and appear to seek (1)
an order from the Court prohibiting the Government's use of the terms (A)
"kidnapping" or "abduction" to describe the Defendants'
actions because the Government admits the Minors were not removed by force, (B)
"victims" to describe the Minors, or (C) "cult" or
otherwise characterize Lev Tahor as a religious community in which leaders
"control" the minds of the members of group or otherwise coerce them
to practice their religion in a certain way. Broadly construed, Defendants
papers and the exhibits attached thereto also suggest that Defendants intend to
assert the following defenses at trial (1) they are not guilty of kidnapping
and kidnapping conspiracy because (A) as the Government admits, no force was
used against the Minors; (B) Defendants were rescuing the Minors from abuse,
and therefore "unlawful" exercise of parental rights by the Mother;
and (C) the Family Court order was improper and has no legal effect; and as to
(2) Minor-1 consented to marry, be transported, and engage in sexual activity
with Jacob Rosner, and any sexual relations between them were within their
religious marriage, and therefore the sex trafficking charges do not hold
water….
The Defendants are members of Lev Tahor, a Jewish religious
community of about 250 members founded in the 1980s by the father of Defendant
Helbrans ("the late Rabbi Helbrans"). Defendant Helbrans took over as
the community's leader after his father passed away in 2016 or 2017. Regardless
of their age, all brides in the Lev Tahor community are required to have sex
with their husbands on predetermined intervals and new brides and grooms are
instructed by community leaders on when and how to have sex before they are
married.
In or about 2017, Helbrans arranged to have Minor-1, his
then-twelve-year-old niece, engaged to be religiously "married" to J.
Rosner, who was eighteen years old at the time. Minor-1 and J. Rosner were
religiously "married" the following year when she was thirteen and he
was nineteen. They were never legally married. They immediately began a sexual
relationship with the goal of procreation….
In or around early November 2018, the Mother and her six
children, including the Minors, left Lev Tahor and relocated to the United
States.
On or about November 14, 2018, the Kings County Family Court
in Brooklyn, New York … granted the Mother temporary sole custody of her six
children, including the Minors, and enjoined the children's father, Aaron
Teller …, a leader in the Lev Tahor community not named as a defendant in this
case, from having any communication with the children. The orders of the Family
Court are collectively referred to as "the Family Court Order." …
After the Mother and her children left Guatemala, the
Defendants and others devised a plan to return the Minors, then fourteen and
twelve years old, to Lev Tahor. At approximately 3:00 A.M. on or about December
8, 2018, Helbrans, Mordechay Malka, J. Rosner, and others removed the Minors
from a home in Woodridge, New York. They, along with others, took the Minors to
a hotel where they were provided with new clothes before they were driven to
Scranton International Airport in Pennsylvania. Helbrans and the Minors,
dressed in secular clothing, and using passports bearing the names of two of
Helbrans's children proceeded through airport security in Scranton, flew to
Washington, D.C., then to Texas, and then took a bus across the border to
Mexico. Other Defendants, including Mordechay Malka and J. Rosner, took
separate routes out of the country to Mexico. Once in Mexico, Helbrans and
others transported the Minors to several hotels and residences with assistance
from Lev Tahor members in the United States, Mexico, and Guatemala. At various
times, Helbrans and the Minors were met by Rosner, J. Rosner, Matityau Moshe
Malka, and others.
On or about December 18, 2018, Mexican law enforcement
raided a house in San Miguel Tlaixpan, Mexico, and detained Helbrans, Rosner, J.
Rosner, and Matityau Moshe Malka, among other individuals. On December 26,
2018, officials from Mexico's immigration authority, Instituto Nacional de
Migración ("INM"), informed the FBI that INM had elected to deport
Helbrans, Rosner, J. Rosner, and Matityau Moshe Malka—all of whom were and are
U.S. citizens—from Mexico and deliver them into the custody of the FBI. On
December 27, 2018, two INM officials accompanied Helbrans, Rosner, J. Rosner,
and Matityau Moshe Malka on a commercial flight from Mexico City to New York.
The FBI arrested Helbrans, Rosner, and J. Rosner upon their arrival at John F.
Kennedy International Airport …, pursuant to a Complaint alleging that
Helbrans, Rosner, and J. Rosner conspired to kidnap two victims….
On or about December 27, 2018, the Minors were recovered at
a hotel in Mexico. At the time, the Minors were accompanied by Shmiel and Yoil
Weingarten. In and around December 2018, the entire Lev Tahor community was
seeking asylum in Iran.
The court decision generally comes out against the
defendants. Haaretz reports, as to the last point:
Hundreds of members of the Jewish ultra-orthodox Lev Tahor
sect are trying to reach Iran, where they requested political asylum in 2019,
but their relatives are afraid that Tehran may use the group, who hold Israeli
and American citizenships, as bargaining chips.
On the other hand, from the Times of Israel:
The spokesman for an anti-Zionist Haredi cult was recorded
praising the IDF in a clip retrieved by The Times of Israel Wednesday, in what
could threaten the extremist group's ongoing efforts to seek asylum in the
Islamic Republic of Iran.
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