Arbiv allegedly received well over half a million shekels in favors from Pinto
Favors allegedly included NIS 700,000 shekels towards an apartment in Tel Aviv, according to details revealed after court lifts gag order.
By JPOST.COM STAFFRabbi Yeshayahu Pinto(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
A gag order was lifted on the details of Rabbi Yeshayahu Yosef Pinto's alleged bribery of senior police officer Cmdr.Menashe Arbiv on Sunday, revealing the vast extent of the payoff.The favors Arbiv allegedly recieved from Pinto include a NIS 700,000 discount on an apartment he bought in north Tel Aviv, help attaining a visa for his family to the United States, and a NIS 2,000 monthly allowance for his son.Arbiv’s unit, Lahav 433, is often referred to as “The Israeli FBI.” He resigned last week and has denied any wrongdoing.Founder of the Shuva Israel Yeshiva, Pinto is a well-known rabbi both in Israel and the US, and a descendant of two Sephardi rabbinical dynasties, Pinto and Abuhatzeira. He was listed as the seventh-richest rabbi in Israel last year by Forbes Israel.In 2012, Pinto was arrested along with his wife after police allegedly recorded him giving a briefcase full of cash to then Asst.-Ch. Ephraim Bracha – now the head of the police’s National Fraud Squad.Ben Hartman and Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.
