How a love born in Brooklyn devolved into a bizarre religious cult in the New Mexican desert
NOV 03, 2018
"The tale of a New Mexico Doomsday cult whose founders were charged with running a terrorist training camp for children started as a Brooklyn love story.
Jany Leveille, 35, an undocumented Haitian woman accused by the FBI of leading the group, was once a devout Muslim woman aching to start a family.
Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40, the son of a prominent imam at Masjid-at-Taqwa in Bedford-Stuyvesant, appeared to be the answer to her prayers.
But what began full of promise evolved. They went from a loving couple with children to a polygamist relationship filled with what relatives say was jealousy, mental illness and child neglect and ended in an armed raid by state and federal authorities....
On Nov. 30, 2017, Wahhaj allegedly told Ramzi he was taking Abdul-Ghani to a park near their Jonesboro, Ga., home. That was the last time she saw her son.
Federal prosecutors claim Wahhaj and Leveille abducted the boy because Leveille had suffered a miscarriage and believed Ramzi used “black magic” that resulted in Jany’s baby being transferred from Jany into (Ramzi’s) womb,” according to court papers.
Leveille’s brother scoffed at that allegation.
“In Islam, having seizures can also be viewed as being possessed by spirits,” he said. “We stayed in contact for the entire nine months. I am one hundred percent sure they tried to heal him (Abdul-Ghani).”
Investigators found Leveille’s digital journal in the New Mexico raid that revealed that the boy died without his medication on Dec. 24 — less than a month after the family left Georgia....
State prosecutors recently decided to pause their child abuse case against Wahhaj and Leveille until the federal case could go through.
A trial date has not been set, a spokeswoman for the U.S. District Attorney’s office told the Daily News....
The group remains in custody until further notice..."
How a love born in Brooklyn devolved into a bizarre religious cult in the New Mexican desert - NY Daily News
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