MONTREAL —
U.S. prosecutors say two leaders of a Jewish sect that has been beforehand investigated in Quebec have been convicted of kidnapping and baby sexual exploitation crimes.
Nachman Helbrans and Mayer Rosner, each U.S. residents, are leaders of the sect referred to as Lev Tahor, American authorities stated. The 2 have been convicted Wednesday for planning to kidnap two minors, a 14-year-old woman and a 12-year-old boy, from their mom in Woodridge, New York.
A launch from the U.S. Division of Justice says the defendants smuggled the kids into Mexico, the place the younger woman was returned to “an unlawful sexual relationship with an grownup man.”
“Nachman Helbrans and Mayer Rosner openly kidnapped two kids from their mom in the midst of the evening,” stated U.S. Legal professional for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams.
Each Helbrans and Rosner face doable life-imprisonment.
Quebec youth safety providers investigated Lev Tahor 5 years in the past, amid allegations of kid neglect locally of about 200 individuals — half of them kids — in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que.
A 2013 probe concluded that the neighborhood’s housing was insufficient, the kids’s well being wants have been being uncared for and so they weren’t receiving a correct schooling. There have been additionally allegations of underage marriages.
As a Quebec courtroom ordered that 14 Lev Tahor kids be positioned in foster care in November 2013, sect members fled in a single day, settling first within the southwestern Ontario area of Chatham-Kent. After Ontario courts took up the case, the group uprooted once more, and by the summer season of 2014, many had moved to Guatemala.
— Extra particulars to return.
— With recordsdata from The Canadian Press.
