Police probing charges MK Slomiansky paid for votes
By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Bayit Yehudi MK Nisan Slomiansky earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first legislator in the 19th Knesset to be the subject of a new police investigation, according to evidence revealed Monday by Channel 2 and Yediot Aharonot.Slomiansky was the big winner in the November 13 Bayit Yehudi Knesset primary, receiving 18,601 of the 33,312 votes cast. He beat challengers Ayelet Shaked and Uri Orbach by a wide margin, even though they had the backing of newly elected party chairman Naftali Bennett and Slomiansky did not.But the reports revealed that some of those votes allegedly came from vote contractors who Slomiansky paid large sums. Tapes of the vote contractors explaining how Slomiansky bribed them were submitted to police by Bennett, who hired private investigator Nisim Garameh to check whether Slomiansky was using illegal methods against him and his allies.Vote contractor Avichai Amrusi told Garameh that he registered 4000 people in Bayit Yehudi’s membership drive. Amrusi said the costs of the membership fees totaled some NIS 60,000, but Slomiansky paid 125,000 to his yeshiva and owed him an equal amount.
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