A federal judge in the state of New York in the United States today (Thursday) sentenced Nachman Halbrenz and Meir Rosner, years of the leaders of the extremist “pure heart”, to 144 months in prison, for the charges against them, including exploitation of minors and abduction of minors.
As you may recall, the two leaders of the sect, Nachman Halbrenz and Meir Rosner, were convicted of abducting and smuggling two ultra-Orthodox children from their parents’ home in New York to Mexico and from there to the sect’s seat in Guatemala, almost three years ago.
Over the past year Halbranz and Rosner have been convicted on all six charges on their behalf, by a jury. They are not the only detainees in the shaky affair. Apart from them, several other pure-hearted cultists have been arrested in connection with the case, including brothers Joel, Jacob and Shmiel Weingarten, who have been detained by Guatemalan authorities for more than a year.
The two were convicted of kidnapping children from their home in Woodridge (an uptown New York holiday village that also has a Hasidic population throughout the year), carried out in the middle of Saturday – while disgracefully desecrating Shabbat, with Aaron Yeshaya Rosner, Meir Rosner’s brother, driving Of early morning in the car that drove the children away.
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The indictment filed against the brother shortly after the affair states that Aaron Isaiah Rosner “seized, abducted, carried and held a man in exchange for ransom and in other ways. Aaron Rosner participated in a plan to kidnap two victims in Woodridge, New York, and transfer the victims to Mexico.”
According to the indictment, the sophisticated smuggling involved the children being flown to Mexico through an airport in Pennsylvania, USA. That’s why in a clothing store in New Jersey by people dressed as followers.
During a hearing about five months ago, U.S. Attorney General Damian Williams said: “Nachman Halbers and Meir Rosner brazenly abducted two children from their mother in the middle of the night to return a 14-year-old girl to an illegal relationship with an adult man. “Today it is clear that our ministry – and our law enforcement partners – will not be deterred from achieving justice with victims of child exploitation.”