2 Extremist Jewish Sect Members Convicted Of Kidnapping

MID-HUDSON VALLEY, NY — Two more members of an extremist Jewish sect call Lev Tahor were convicted at trial of kidnapping and other offenses.

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that Mordechay Malka, 27, and Matityau Malka, 30, both U.S. citizens living in Guatemala, were convicted in White Plains federal court of scheming to kidnap a 14-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy from their mother.

Prosecutors said the men kidnapped the children from their mother in Woodridge, Sullivan County, in December 2018. They smuggled the children across the U.S. border to Mexico, where they reunited the girl with her adult "husband," to whom she was religiously "married," not legally, when she was 13 years old.

After the children were recovered and returned to their mother, the Malkas and two co-conspirators — Nachman Helbrans and Mayer Rosner — tried to kidnap the children a second time in March 2019.

Helbrans and Rosner were convicted of kidnapping and sexual exploitation charges in October 2021 and were sentenced to 12 years in prison in March.

The Malkas were convicted of one count of conspiring to commit international parental kidnapping, to unlawfully use a means of identification and to enter by false pretenses the secure area of an airport, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Mordechay Malka was also convicted of two counts of international parental kidnapping, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison for each count.

Matityau Malka was also convicted of one count of attempted international parental kidnapping, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.