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Four more charged in Jewish ‘cult’ alleged kidnapping plot


Four more alleged members of Lev Tahor, an extremist Jewish sect based in Guatemala, have been charged with taking part in a plot to nab two children who are living with their mother upstate and take them back to their father at the group’s compound.


Revealed in court papers unsealed on Friday, defendants Mordechay Malka, Shmiel Weingarten, Yoil Weingarten and Yakov Weingarten were charged with participating in a scheme to take the two children from their mother, who had fled the Lev Tahor sect.


Lev Tahor MICHALEL SHABBOS Cult Member Arrested At NY Airport


A Lev Tahor cult member was arrested in New York, Wednesday night, and is being charged with kidnapping. Mordechai Yoel Malka was arrested upon his arrival at Newark Airport, as he arrived on a flight from Guatemala.


He was expected to be charged with identity theft, as he allegedly used a fake passport to fly to the United States, and kidnapping charges. Malka was allegedly the Michallel Shabbos who drove 14-year-old Yante Teller and her 12-year-old brother Chaim when they were kidnapped from Woodridge early on a Shabbos morning in December of 2018.


Jewish ‘cult’ members now facing lesser charges in alleged kidnap plot


Alleged members of the extremist Jewish group Lev Tahor are now facing lesser charges in the alleged kidnapping two Orthodox children from their mother in New York last year, according to an indictment unsealed this week.


The defendants were initially hit with federal kidnapping charges, which carry a ten-year mandatory minimum sentence.


But the new indictment shows that five men — Nachman Helbrans, Mayer Rosner, Aaron Rosner, Jacob Rosner and Matitya Moshe Malka — face just three counts of international parental kidnapping, which has a three-year maximum sentence, along with a related conspiracy charge.


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