2 Religious Sect Leaders Get Prison For Kidnapping, Sex Exploitation

WOODRIDGE, NY — Two leaders of an extremist religious sect were sentenced to prison for kidnapping and sex trafficking.

Damian Wiliams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Nachman Helbrans, 40, and Mayer Rosner, 45, were sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison for child sexual exploitation and kidnapping.

He said the men, who are leaders of Lev Tahor, masterminded a scheme to kidnap a 14-year-old girl and 12-year-old boy from their mother in Woodridge, Sullivan County.

Helbrans and Rosner then smuggled the children across the U.S. border to Mexico where they reunited the girl with her adult "husband" to allow him to continue his illegal sexual relationship with the girl.

The men were convicted in November following a four-week jury trial.

Williams said no mother should ever have to wake up to find her children missing.

"And no child should ever be forced into a sexual relationship," he said. "Today's sentencings send a clear message: Those who kidnap and sexually exploit children will be prosecuted and punished to the full extent of the law."

Helbrans and Rosner, who are U.S. citizens, are senior leaders of Lev Tahor, an extremist religious sect that has been located in several jurisdictions, including New York, Israel, Canada, Mexico and Guatemala.

Helbrans became Lev Tahor's leader in 2017, with Rosner as his top lieutenant.

When they took over, prosecutors said, they seized tight control over the group and embraced extreme practices, including child marriages and underage sex.

In 2017, Helbrans arranged for his then-12-year-old niece to be "married" to a then-18-year-old man. They were religiously "married," not legally married, the following year.

The sect's leadership, including Helbrans and Rosner, required the young brides to have sex with their husbands, tell people outside Lev Tahor they were not married and lie about their ages.

As an example, the child brides were instructed to deliver babies inside their homes, instead of a hospital, in order to conceal the mothers' young ages from outsiders.

In October 2018, the girl's mother decided it was no longer safe for her children to remain in the Lev Tahor community, which was then living in Guatemala. The mother escaped and arrived in the U.S. in early November 2018 and was eventually joined all six of her children, including the girl.

Also in November 2018, a Brooklyn family court granted the mother sole custody of the children and prohibited the children's father, a Lev Tahor leader, from communicating with the children.

After the mother fled and settled in New York with her children, Helbrans and Rosner devised a plan to kidnap the girl, who was then 14, to return her to Guatemala to her then-20-year-old "husband."

They kidnapped the girl and her brother in December 2018 in the middle of the night from a home in upstate New York and took them through various states and, eventually, to Mexico. They used disguises,, aliases, drop phones, fake travel documents and an encrypted application.

At the time of the kidnapping, Lev Tahor leadership was seeking asylum for the entire Lev Tahor community in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

After a three-week search involving hundreds of local, federal international law enforcement entities, the girl and boy were found in Mexico and returned to New York.

Members of Lev Tahor, in March 2019 and March 2021, tried to kidnap the children but were unsuccessful.

In addition to the prison sentences, Helbrans and Rosner were sentenced to five years of supervised release.