A federal judge in White Plains New York District Court today (Thursday) sentenced Nachman Helbrenz, leader of the Pure Heart sect, to 12 years in prison.
He was convicted late last year on six counts for his part in abducting two children from Brooklyn to Mexico, actually Saturday, in 2018 and for abuse.
According to the lawsuit, Helbrenz did not show “a single gram of remorse for his behavior.” Helbrenz, for his part, claimed that he was punished “only because I was a loyal Jew.”
After serving his sentence he will be given five years under supervision as a felony of serious acts.
Meir Rosner, one of the cult’s leaders, was sentenced to the same punishment for abducting and abusing children.
Helbrenz and Rosner were convicted earlier this month of Kislev in all six charges filed against them.
The two were charged with kidnapping a minor brother and sister, who left the Pure Heart sect with their mother. Helbrenz and the children were disguised as Gentiles at the time of the abduction. He was captured by Mexican authorities, in cooperation with FBI agents, immediately after landing with the children at an airport in Mexico.
The abduction took place on Saturday night. Pure Heart personnel were seen getting into the vehicle around 3 a.m. in Brooklyn. The abducted children were taken from there to an airport in the state of Pennsylvania, and from there took off for Mexico City on Saturday.
A federal judge has just sentenced Lev Tahor cult leader, Nachman Helbrans, to 12 years in prison followed by 5 years of supervised release for the 2018 kidnapping of two children who escaped the cult. The sentencing for a second cult leader, Mayer Rosner, is ongoing. pic.twitter.com/QLFrAgYFkm
— Hertfordshire Friends of Israel ???????????????? (@HertfordshireI) March 31, 2022
According to the indictment, they abducted the minors from their mother, abused, starved, and robbed them of their liberty.
U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said when the indictment was filed against them in 2019: “The defendants engaged in the abduction of a minor girl in the middle of the night, and moved her across the border to Mexico to reunite her with her adult‘ husband ’, to continue the relationship between them. “These accusations send a clear message that we will not tolerate the exploitation of children.”
Several other members of the Pure Heart Squad were arrested in connection with the affair, including brothers Joel, Jacob and Samuel Weingarten – who were arrested by Guatemalan authorities last year. They are expected to be extradited to the United States, where they will face indictment and trial.
Three other detainees from the cult are reportedly cooperating with U.S. authorities.
The Pure Heart sect was founded by Shlomo Halbrenz, an Israeli convert, in the 1980s. He drowned on a river in Mexico in 2017. Since then, the leadership has passed to his son Nachman Helbrenz, along with Meir Rosner, Yankel and Joel Weingarten.
Experts say that Halbrenz is even more radical and aggressive than his late father.
The cult has moved over the years from New York to Canada, and from there to Guatemala. In recent months, they have tried to reach Iran, but have been stopped. Since then they have been migrating between countries in Europe.