Courtesy of WRCR.
Three brothers from Monsey will spend time behind bars after they were sentenced in federal court yesterday to more than a decade each in prison. That’s according to The Journal News. Yoil Weingarten got twelve years while his brothers Yakov and Shmiel, each got 14 years, after they were found guilty back in March of the 2018 kidnapping of a 12-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl. U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said they took the girl outside the United States to continue a sexual relationship with her adult ‘husband.’ Williams said the brothers were part of a fringe sect of ultra-Orthodox Judaism called Lev Tahor, which forced child marriages, physical beatings, and family separations, causing “irreparable harm to children in their formative years.” The Weingartens had said they were following their Jewish faith by “rescuing” the children. One of the victims had read a statement in court supporting the brothers and urging leniency.