Conviction Jewish institutions and contexts Hasidic and Haredi communities Brooklyn, New York, USA · 2009

United States: Satmar father convicted of transporting his daughter across borders to abuse her, having told her the community's respect for him meant she would not be believed

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Disposition and response

Material that narrows or disputes the record

Appellate history

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

father holding standing within the Satmar Hasidic community, a rabbinical court and community rabbis before whom the allegations were adjudicated

Organization

Satmar Hasidic community, Antwerp, United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The Second Circuit's recitation of the trial evidence records that when the victim threatened to disclose the abuse, Weingarten warned her she would not be believed because of the respect in which he was held in the Satmar community; that he required her to make a recording designed to portray her as sexually promiscuous, which he said he would play to rabbis in that community to support his denials; and that the allegations were taken before a rabbinical court, where she testified against him. The standing he held within the religious community, and that community's own tribunal, were the instruments through which disclosure was to be defeated.

Institutional obedience or isolation
Sacred sex, purity, or sexual-energy claim
Religious marriage or family control

Scope decision

The victim was the defendant's daughter, and this archive does not ordinarily hold abuse whose only nexus is the family. It is included because the appellate record establishes a mechanism beyond the family relationship: the Second Circuit's own account of the trial evidence has Weingarten invoking his standing in the Satmar community to tell his daughter she would not be believed, manufacturing evidence specifically to be presented to community rabbis, and the matter passing before a rabbinical court. The federal convictions are for transportation and travel offences under 18 U.S.C. § 2423, not for the sexual abuse itself, which occurred principally in Belgium and Israel and was outside United States jurisdiction; the abuse is described in the appellate opinions as the conduct underlying those offences. The appellate position is recorded as modified rather than affirmed because one count of conviction was reversed on the first appeal, even though the aggregate sentence was unchanged on resentencing and was then affirmed and left undisturbed through certiorari. The victim is not named here; she is identified in the opinions only as Doe, and the archive does not reproduce identifying detail about her later life. No finding is made about any rabbi, the rabbinical court, or any other individual in the Satmar community, several of whom the opinion records as having acted to remove the victim from the household and place her in school abroad.

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2009-05-08 · conviction and sentence after jury trial

United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Gleeson, J.). Israel Weingarten was convicted by a jury on two counts of transporting a minor in foreign commerce with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity (18 U.S.C. § 2423(a)) and three counts of travel in foreign commerce with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct (§ 2423(b)), and was sentenced to thirty years' imprisonment and three years' supervised release.
2011-01-18 · first direct appeal decided

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Second Circuit reversed the conviction on Count Three, holding that travel between Belgium and Israel with no territorial nexus to the United States is not 'travel in foreign commerce' under § 2423(b), affirmed the convictions on Counts One, Two, Four and Five, and remanded for resentencing. Reported at 632 F.3d 60.
2011-09-12 · resentencing after remand

United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. On the four remaining counts the district court imposed the same aggregate sentence of thirty years' imprisonment, changing the term on Count Four from concurrent to consecutive.
2013-04-16 · second direct appeal decided

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Second Circuit rejected Weingarten's double jeopardy, merger and due process challenges to the resentencing and affirmed the judgment of the district court. Reported at 713 F.3d 704.
2017-07-27 · collateral review decided

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Second Circuit addressed Weingarten's petition for relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 while he was serving the thirty-year sentence; relief was denied. Reported at 865 F.3d 48.
2018-03-19 · certiorari denied

Supreme Court of the United States. The petition for a writ of certiorari to the Second Circuit was denied, 138 S. Ct. 1309. Appeals exhausted.

Documented coercion mechanisms

standing in the religious community invoked to make the victim disbelievable
a fabricated recording prepared to be played to community rabbis to portray the victim as promiscuous
relocation of the family between countries in response to the victim complaining publicly
isolation, in which the victim was not permitted to be in public alone

Cited record

Sources

court of record appellate opinion United States v. Weingarten, 632 F.3d 60 (2d Cir., 18 January 2011).: The first direct appeal, read in full. It recites the trial evidence: that Weingarten and his family were members of the Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism; that the abuse of his daughter began when she was nine or ten and continued more than six years; that 'Weingarten warned Doe that she would not be believed because of the respect in which he was held in the Satmar community'; that a rabbi of the Belgian Satmar community 'brought Doe before a rabbinical court, where she testified against her father' and afterwards arranged for her to be sent to England; that Weingarten told her the family would move to Israel 'because of the bad name she had given them by complaining publicly about the abuse'; and that as a condition of her return he required her to record a conversation with a neighbour giving the impression she had seduced him, which 'he planned to play the tape for rabbis in the Satmar community, so that they would believe his claims that she was sexually promiscuous and he had never molested her'. The court reversed Count Three, affirmed Counts One, Two, Four and Five and remanded for resentencing.
court of record appellate opinion United States v. Weingarten, 713 F.3d 704 (2d Cir., 16 April 2013).: The second direct appeal, read in part. It records the 2009 jury conviction before Judge Gleeson, the original thirty-year sentence, the vacatur of one § 2423(b) count on the first appeal, the resentencing on 12 September 2011 to the same aggregate thirty years with Count Four changed from a concurrent to a consecutive term, and the court's rejection of the double jeopardy, merger and due process challenges: 'We are not persuaded by any of Weingarten's arguments, and AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.'
court of record appellate opinion Weingarten v. United States, 865 F.3d 48 (2d Cir., 27 July 2017); cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 1309 (19 March 2018).: The collateral-review decision, recording that Weingarten was 'currently serving a thirty-year sentence following convictions of two counts of transporting a minor in foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in criminal sexual activity and two counts of travel in foreign commerce for the purpose of engaging in sexual conduct with a minor in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423', and appealing the denial of his § 2255 petition. The Supreme Court denied certiorari on 19 March 2018.

Source provenance

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Source and tier basis: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/182880/united-states-v-weingarten/ Corpus classification: court-of-record; evidentiary role: appellate-opinion.
Retrieval: 2026-07-28 · Preserved; Bound by Fear research cycle 2026-07-28 (all three appellate opinions read via CourtListener; every quotation checked verbatim against the opinion text; full appellate chain traced through certiorari denial)
Source and tier basis: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/858087/united-states-v-weingarten/ Corpus classification: court-of-record; evidentiary role: appellate-opinion.
Retrieval: 2026-07-28 · Preserved; Bound by Fear research cycle 2026-07-28 (all three appellate opinions read via CourtListener; every quotation checked verbatim against the opinion text; full appellate chain traced through certiorari denial)
Source and tier basis: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4412730/weingarten-v-united-states/ Corpus classification: court-of-record; evidentiary role: appellate-opinion.
Retrieval: 2026-07-28 · Preserved; Bound by Fear research cycle 2026-07-28 (all three appellate opinions read via CourtListener; every quotation checked verbatim against the opinion text; full appellate chain traced through certiorari denial)

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