A Massachusetts man prosecutors describe as an "elder" in a religious organization was sentenced Wednesday to at least three decades in prison for raping two children.
The Bristol County District Attorney's Office said 37-year-old Nehemya Smith of Plymouth received a sentence of 30 to 40 years in state prison after being found guilty last month of 25 charges.
Smith was convicted of 11 counts of aggravated rape of a child, another count of rape, nine counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14 and four counts of indecent assault and battery on a person under 14.
"The defendant was an 'elder' with the Twelve Tribes, which is an international religious based organization with multiple locations in New England," the district attorney's office said in a press release Wednesday. "When members join the Tribe, they give up their possessions and live communally."
The investigations of both cases began after siblings of the victims left the group, learned about the allegations and alerted police, according to prosecutors.
The abuse occurred between 2016 and 2020 in the towns of Raynham, Hyannis and Milton, prosecutors explained. One girl was abused between the ages of 14 and 16 while the other was abused between the ages of 12 and 15.
While the incidents spanned three counties, prosecutors said the cases in Barnstable County and Norfolk County were transferred to Bristol County to try them all together.
The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the Twelve Tribes as "a Christian fundamentalist cult" started in the South in the 1970s.
NBC affiliate WJAR reported that the group runs The Yellow Deli, a sandwich shop on Main Street in Plymouth.
The restaurant's website lists locations in 11 U.S. states, also including New Hampshire and Vermont, and in seven other countries around the world.
Free pamphlets inside The Yellow Deli's Plymouth location describe the group's "radical movement" and invite people to join its community, WJAR reported.
The Twelve Tribes has faced criticism involving treatment of children for years. Authorities in Germany raided settlements in Bavaria in 2013, removing 40 children after hidden-camera footage showed parents caning children as punishment. That decision was later upheld by the European Court of Human Rights, The Associated Press reported in 2018.
