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Nehemyah Smith, 37, was found guilty of sexually abusing two girls in the religious sect where he was a “trusted elder.”

A leader of a south coast religious sect will spend at least 30 years in prison after he was found guilty last month of raping and abusing two “tribe” girls, officials said.

Nehemyah Smith, 37, was convicted last month on all 25 charges, including 12 counts of aggravated child rape and several counts of indecent assault.

Smith was sentenced Wednesday in Fall River Superior Court to 13 to 18 years in prison for rape and child rape. According to the court clerk, he then faces 17 to 22 years in prison for aggravated child rape with a ten-year age difference.

Smith, of Plymouth, was a “trusted elder” within the Twelve Tribes, a male-led international religious organization in which families give up their property and live in community, according to court documents. The known abuse occurred between 2016 and 2020.

The Twelve Tribes have communities in Milton, Raynham, Hyannis and Plymouth, where members operate a restaurant called Yellow Deli. According to court documents, Smith’s victims were abused in all of those cities except Plymouth.

The group’s website describes it as “an emerging spiritual nation” whose members aim to live like the first disciples and follow the Old and New Testaments.

An investigation of the Denver Post in 2022 described the Twelve Tribes as a cult that exploits members, spreads racist, misogynistic and homophobic doctrines, and fails to protect children from sexual abuse.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit advocacy group, said Twelve Tribes is a white supremacist cult that extensively beats children who misbehave and believes homosexuality should be punishable by death.

Cult elder abused at least one victim for years

According to the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office, the victims were both living with their parents in the tribe when police began investigating the allegations. Siblings of both victims reported it to the police.

The first victim told police in 2020 that she was abused by Smith between 2016 and 2019, when she was 14 to 16 years old. According to court documents, he digitally penetrated the girl, attempted to kiss her and fondle her breasts.

“First Nehemyah came into the barn and was kind to her,” before he began attacking her. The victim said he did not penetrate her with his penis.

“(She) decided to tell her sister because she felt like the abuse would never stop, even if she was in another state,” the complaint states. The sister posted the allegations on Facebook due to Smith’s status as a community member within the tribe, leading to the second victim.

When questioned, the second victim told her mother that Smith “touched her breasts and vagina and that the abuse eventually progressed to digital, vaginal, anal and oral intercourse.”

According to court documents, the girl was 12 years old when the abuse began and 15 when it ended.

Smith must now register as a sex offender. He was booked into the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, the state’s only maximum-security prison.