Menashe Arbiv
Jerusalem Magistrates Court Judge Abbas A'asi accepted on
Sunday the Police Investigation Department's request to remove the gag order on
the case against senior police officer Menashe Arbiv.
The press has been permitted to reveal that during the
course of the investigation, it was found that associates of Rabbi Yeshayahu
Pinto helped Arbiv's wife and son obtain visas to the US, presumably in
exchange for information.
Arbiv also received $2,000 per month and a 700,000 shekel
discount on a house in north Tel Aviv, the very seat of the housing crisis.
Rabbi Pinto's associates also claim they helped Arbiv in the
course of his role as Israel's representative policeman to the US.
The gag order was lifted after police appealed to the court
on grounds that in light of other revelations about the case published over the
weekend, the gag order was more or less ineffective and thus, null and void -
even if lifting the gag order could impede the still-ongoing investigation.
On Wednesday, the Attorney General's Office revealed that it
is going to file an indictment against Rabbi Pinto, who is being tried for
corruption. Pinto allegedly attempted to bribe senior police officer Ephraim
Bracha with $200,000 for information about a pending police investigation into
the Hazon Yeshaya charity organization, which Pinto was allegedly closely
involved with.
Bracha immediately reported the incident to his superiors,
prompting a separate investigation against Rabbi Pinto himself.
That investigation revealed that Pinto allegedly tried to
bribe several other officers for information about the case against Hazon
Yeshaya, including Arbiv.
The charity, which was supposed to have provided
millions of dollars to Holocaust survivors and ran a popular soup kitchen and
volunteer network in Jerusalem, closed in 2012 under allegations of fraud.
The allegations claim that several members of the charity -
including Pinto - stole much of the food donated to the kitchen and sold it for
"tens of millions of dollars," according to a 2012 Ha'aretz article.
As such, Pinto will also be indicted for other charges, including obstruction
of justice and money laundering relating to the case.
In January, it was revealed that Pinto may also be involved
in an FBI investigation against Congressman Michael Grimm. Information about
Grimm's case reveals that the US may have been involved in conducting part of
the investigation into Rabbi Pinto himself, with Israeli cooperation; it is
unclear whether or not they helped reveal his involvement in obtaining Arbiv's
family members' US visas.
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