My Rehovot ( ISSN 1817-101X )

Elderly man admits to killing wife with hammer after heated argument over paying caregiver

by Eli Senyor 10.07.09, 08:35 / Israel News

A 76-year-old Rehovot resident is suspected of bludgeoning his wife to death with a hammer while she was sleeping overnight Wednesday.

The man phoned his son a few hours after the act and admitted to killing his wife. The son called Magev David Adom emergency services, who pronounced the 70-year-old woman's death.

Police suspect that a long-running financial dispute between the husband and wife led to the murder.

An initial investigation revealed that the couple had a heated argument Tuesday night after the husband asked his wife for money so he could pay their Filipino caregiver. The wife refused, and the man left the apartment. He returned at around midnight and then murdered his wife in her sleep. The couple's bed was soaked in blood when police arrived at the scene.

MDA paramedic Lion Melamded said the woman was found lying lifeless on the bed, while the husband was in another room.

"From what we could determine the woman sustained a blow to the head from a blunt object, apparently while she was lying in bed," said the paramedic.

Meir Hindi, a neighbor, said the suspect was ill. "I never imagined anything like this could happen to them. I met them at synagogue recently, we spoke and everything seemed fine. I'm in shock," he said.

Chief Superintendent Ofer Dagan, head of Rehovot Police, said the suspect has no prior record of violence.

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

By Yuval Goren, Haaretz Correspondent

A 30-year-old Rehovot resident was found in the central city's retail market Tuesday morning after being shot in the head at close range.

Police are calling the shooting, which was reported at around 7:15 A.M. to Magen David Adom emergency services, an attempted murder.

Police forces and by medical personnel rushed to the scene after the report and found the victim unconscious.

Magen David Adom paramedics administered preliminary medical treatment and evacuated the man to the local Kaplan hospital. The wound left the victim seriously wounded.

A preliminary investigation conducted by Rehovot police found that the shooting had been criminally motivated, resulting from a dispute over the payment of protection money in the market.

Rehovot police officers, headed by deputy Central District commander Yossi Bachar, swept the area in search of the suspect, who had fled the scene.

Haaretz.com 09:45 24/03/2009

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

By Yaakov Lappin

A powerful blast shook Rehovot in the early hours of Tuesday morning, when a bomb planted on a van exploded, seriously wounding its 25-year-old driver.


The scene of the powerful blast that shook Rehovot on Tuesday.
Photo: YAAKOV LAPPIN

SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World Police have described the attack as a criminal assassination attempt.

Tamir Amira, the wounded driver, was rushed to Rehovot's Kaplan hospital in serious condition, suffering from wounds to his limbs. His van was demolished in the explosion.

Police suspect that a large bomb was planted underneath the vehicle and may have been set off via remote control.

The police's Central District Central Unit, headed by Asst.-Cmdr. Avi Noiman, has been tasked with leading the investigation.

According to Central District Police chief Cmdr. Nissim Moor, Amira had a previous criminal record. "We are attempting to catch the culprits," he added.

A criminal feud centering on Rehovot's wholesale market, involving market stall owners and based on a dispute over protection money and the placement of security guards, appears to form the background of the bombing.

Amira sold potatoes at the market, and according to locals who live nearby, he and his older brother may be linked to the March 24 slaying of a man there.

In that attack, a 30-year-old man was shot in the head at close range in broad daylight. He died of his wounds in the hospital.

One local resident, who asked not to be named, said he believed the bombing was a revenge attack for that killing.

"Why don't the authorities tackle crime like [former New York mayor Rudolph] Giuliani did?" the man asked.

"It's gotten to be like Chicago here," a woman added.

Source: JPost.com

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

Three men made away with the contents of a safe after robbing a Rehovot couple on Friday.

The robbers entered a home in the city, tied up the husband and demanded the code for the safe before stealing the valuables inside.

The wife was hospitalized at the city's Kaplan Medical Center with light-to-moderate wounds.

Source: jpost.com

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

Young Jenin resident arrested in central Israeli city after threatening to harm residents with axe; tells investigators he sought to avenge his friend's death in Gaza bombing

By Eli Senyor

One man was lightly injured in a terror attack in the central Israeli city of Rehovot on Friday afternoon. A Jenin resident armed with an axe arrived at the city's main city and threatened to harm passersby. He was arrested by policemen passing by before managing to hurt additional people.

Foiled Attack

Police kill Palestinian attempting to torch gas station / Efrat Weiss

Police receive reports of man trying to set gas station on fire. Upon arriving at scene suspect starts running towards them holding up unidentified object in his hand; officers open fire and kill him

An initial investigation revealed that the man, in his 20s, arrived at the city's Herzl Street with an axe in his hand. He began shouting, "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) and threatened to beat the residents.

Officers traveling in a police patrol car spotted the man and managed to gain control over him.

The man was taken in for questioning at the police station and was to be handed over to the Shin Bet later on. He told his investigators that he had arrived in the city in order to avenge the death of his friend, apparently in an Israeli strike in Gaza.

The police are attempting to find out how the man managed to reach Rehovot from Jenin.

Source: Eli Senyor. YNet.com (01.09.09) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

An ax-wielding 20-year-old man from Jenin attacked passersby on Rehovot's main Herzl Street on Friday, lightly wounding two people.

The assailant then stood with the ax and shouted "Allahu Akhbar" before being arrested.

A 17-year-old suffered light cuts near his ear. He was treated at the scene. A second person also sustained light wounds, but left before paramedics could reach him.

The attacker told police he came to avenge the death of a friend who died in the IDF's Gaza operation.

"We view this as a sporadic incident, not an organized attack," a Shfela Police spokeswoman said.

The suspect was transferred to the security forces for further questioning.

Source: Yaakov Lappin. Two hurt in Rehovot terror axe attack (9, 11/01/2009) JPost.com [FullText]

Labels: Little Orange News, Rehovot Criminal

The decision by israel Ministry of Internal Affairs made decades ago allowed Weizmann Institute not to pay local taxes. This was during the times the science existed for science, not money. Weizmann Institute presently is not a not-for-profit institution. It generates income through a variety of mechanisms, using it's commercialization daugther firm called Teva. Such tax exemption, therefore, is a basis for the curruption and financial irregularities at the Weizmann Institutes reported previously (including the report by State Comptroller). Shuki Forer previously talked on the need for the Weizmann's to pay local tazes. Therefore, as a re-elected mayor of Rehovot Shuki Forer must enforce Weizmann Institute pay local city taxes.

Also see:

Rehovot Wants Weizmann Institute to Pay Local Taxes (MyRehovot, 11/12/2004)

Excerpt: "The Rehovot municipality petitioned the High Court of Justice last week to order Minister of the Interior Avraham Poraz to cancel the Weizmann Institute's longstanding exemption from municipal property taxes. The municipality petitioned to prevent changes in the criteria that would further exempt Weizmann Institute from municipal taxes.

The petition states that in February 2003, the High Court of Justice ruled in favor of the Rehovot municipality and ordered the Ministry of the Interior to reconsider Weizmann Institute's exemption from municipal taxes, and to set criteria for exemptions from municipal taxes.

The Rehovot municipality claims that in the 14 months since the ruling, the Ministry of the Interior had not reviewed Weizmann Institute's eligibility for an exemption.

The municipality claims that it is absurd that the Weizmann Institute's NIS 660 million budget is 45% larger than the municipality's. The municipality claims to have a budget deficit of NIS 49 million and a cumulative deficit of NIS 130 million. It claims that Weizmann Institute should pay NIS 35 million a year in municipal taxes, which would cover two-thirds of the municipality's deficit."

Labels: Rehovot Criminal, Weizmann Institute

17:16PM 19 November 2008 - Shuki Forer technical support election campaign team members, including woman, attack bypassing pedestrrian filming Rehovot-in-election-round-2 street life.



17:16PM Shuki Forer election campaign team members beat owner and editor of MyRehovot.info, harass him (including a woman playing witch role) and say so bad about Shuki Forer on an argument that he in fact does support Forer. Violence by Forer people also caused the damage of the photography equipment.



17:50PM After an attempt to push MyRehovot's Alex to the dark side of Herzl Street Pedestrian walkside by Shuki Forer technical support election campaign team members, beaten and harassed victim escaped, crossed the street and found shelter at a shop next to a Gasoline station. Wrong doorway taken cost few more beats by angry Shuki Forer campaign staff. It took then about 25 minutes to Police to come to the stage after a call by a caring shop staff.



17:55PM Automated videomonitoring by a shop depicted the aggressors as viwed by the police officer who came to the spot shortly after a call by a shop staff. Interestingly, Shuki Forer people lied to the police, saying Alex was inside their office across the street (see video 1 to learn this is a complete lie). While awaiting for a police some other Shuki Forer tech team memners came into the shop, brought broken equipment, and asked Alex not to report to the police this sad affair. The criminal case was filed, however under the law provisions (clauses 192, 379, 452)

Labels: Rehovot Criminal, Rehovot Elections

State files illicit sexual relations charges against woman, intimidation and obstruction of justice charges against her husband; asks court to revoke her teaching license

The Central District Prosecutor's Office filed charges of illicit sexual relations against a Rehovot high school teacher suspected of having sex with one of her 17-year-old students.

The State further filed charges against the woman's husband, for intimidation and obstruction of justice. The prosecution also asked the court to rescind the woman's teaching license.

According to the indictment, filed with the Rehovot Magistrate's Court on Monday, the teacher and her student became involved after she took an interest in his studies.



The bond formed soon became intimate, and the two allegedly began meeting in a secluded filed in one of the moshavim on the outskirts of the city, or in a nearby guesthouse.

Other sexual encounters, said the prosecution, took place at the beach, the teacher's offices and at another student's house.

The other student, made privy to the relationship, apparently videoed the two using her cell-phone camera. Once rumors about the affair began circulating, alleged the State, both students were invited to the teacher's house, where she and her husband instructed them to deny the rumors.

The husband then instructed the boy's friend to erase the videos from her cell phone. When he later learned she did not deny the rumors suggesting his wife and the boy were having an affair, he threatened her.

The Central District Prosecution claims to have a solid case against the teacher.

Attorney Yael Azmon, for the State, told the court the prosecution intends to enter into evidence detailed affidavits by the both students, tapes of confrontations between the parties and several testimonies by other students who saw the cell-phone video.

Source: Eli Senyor. YNetnews 11.10.08, 10:47 / Israel News

Labels: Rehovot Criminal, Rehovot Professional Misconduct

Israel's police chief David (Dudi) Cohen talks on Violence and Rehovot. See his interview full text at Haaretz.com]

...But there is youth violence and there is night violence, and the protection racket has become a national problem.

"The police force is the country's emergency room. In a large number of cases involving a social or educational failure, we are the ones who finally arrive to pick up the pieces. Our ER receives the ailments of the Israeli society. On Friday night you will find hundreds of drunk kids from a certain ethnic background on Herzl Street in Rehovot. Hundreds. That is their culture. I cannot deal with their culture. I get them at 2 A.M., drunk, threatening one another with broken bottles. So what do I do? I transfer six Border Police companies from the seam line [the boundary line between Israel and the West Bank] to the city centers. I create more Border Police companies. I station a company in Acre and a company in Carmiel and a company in Hadera and two companies in Tel Aviv. And I send people from offices to the stations, to the front line. And I formulate a multi-year plan that will give me a larger budget and more policemen every year. But when you have 2.7 policemen per 1,000 inhabitants in Israel, compared with 5 per 1,000 in Europe, there is a problem. You cannot expect a relatively small and poorly budgeted police force to cope with all the problems that arise in Israeli society."

You said nothing about the protection racket. Herzl Street in Rehovot, which you mentioned, is said to be tainted with protection. As are main streets in other major cities.

"It is impossible to say that there is no protection money phenomenon in the country. There is such a phenomenon. But I don't think that protection is a national problem. I admit that it is hard for us to gauge the scale of the phenomenon. With drugs I can tell you how much is coming in: 100 tons of marijuana from Egypt, two-thirds of a ton of heroin from Jordan, and the same with Lebanon. But when it comes to protection money, people do not file complaints. It is hard to uncover because there are no complainants, there is no evidence and no case. But it is clear to us that the protection money phenomenon has worsened in the past few years."

And the "crime families"? It looks as though the crime families have simply taken over the street. They are everywhere. Whole cities are within their sphere of crime.

"I don't like the term 'crime family.' A family is a normal thing. These are crime organizations that have sprung up in the past decade and grown stronger over the years. Each such organization has a hierarchical structure. It has a chief, an intermediate level and 'soldiers.' Each such organization numbers between dozens and hundreds of people. The structure is almost military, but the capability extends to the economic sphere, too. The organizations are involved in drugs, protection money, taking over businesses, smuggling and gambling. They also penetrate local governments and the legitimate economy."

How many organizations do the police know of?

"Currently we have identified about 20 local crime organizations and six national crime organizations: Abutbul, Abergil, Jarushi, Domrani, Molner and Shirazi. We know that there are others as well..."

Source: Ari Shavit. The shield. Haaretz.com (3 October 2008) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

"A Petach Tikvah court on Sunday convicted two defendants in the brutal robbery of a cab driver in which they stabbed him in the eye before taking off with NIS 100.

The two defendants, Ofer Finko, 21 and Gara Morositz, 19, both from Rehovot, pled guilty to aggravated robbery and conspiracy to commit a crime.

The indictment states that the two defendants were searching for a car to break into in Rehovot and when they didn't find a suitable target, they called a taxi station nearby and ordered a cab to take them to Kibbutz Palmahim.

The two then rode with the cab driver, Yaakov Mizrachi towards Palmahim, and when they got to a junction near the kibbutz the two defendants began beating Mizrachi. When Mizrachi tried to protect himself against the attackers, they stabbed him in the eye with the screwdriver, causing him to lose his left eye.

Despite the severity of the crime, the two were given only 8 years in prison due to their agreement to sign a plea bargain"

Source: Ofra Edelman, Haaretz Correspondent. Men who gouged cab driver's eye with screwdriver jailed for 8 years. Haaretz.com (5 October 2008) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

"Two Rehovot men were convicted Sunday of committing a violent robbery on a taxi driver as a result of which he lost one of his eyes.

The two - Ophir Pinko, 21, and Gera Morosich, 19 - were found guilty as part of a plea bargain on charges of robbery, grievous bodily harm and conspiracy to commit a crime for the February attack on 72-year-old Yaakov Mizrahi, in which they used a screwdriver.

The prosecution was expected to ask the Petah Tikva District Court to sentence the two to eight years in jail."

JPost.com staff. Two Rehovot men convicted of violent robbery on taxi driver JPost.com (7 Oct 2008) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

Roni Singer-Heruti

Police on Thursday requested a remand extension for a Rehovot resident suspected of producing drugs in her home.

Following information received by Rehovot police, detectives arrived at the woman's apartment late Wednesday evening and uncovered 20,000 pills which, according to police, included a "psychoactive" substance. They also found a liquid that could allegedly be sufficient for the production of one million pills.
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Police admitted, though, that the pills confiscated were unidentified, and apparently were not listed as prohibited drugs. Police explained that even if this is not a case of illegal drugs, this is an offense of "negligent handling of medicine" or another pharmaceutical crime.

The woman, who lives with her three children, is also accused of child neglect.

Source: Roni Singer-Heruti. Woman suspected of producing drugs at Rehovot home, Haaretz (7 August 2008) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

The Tel Aviv District Court sentenced Mustafa Ziad and Shadi Fahida to nine years in prison for robbing an elderly woman from Rehovot. In February 2007, the two broke into 79-year-old Aida Gravibecker's apartment, pressed a knife blade against her neck and stole her wallet, cash, check books, clock, medals, chain and even food from her refridgerator.

Gravibecker was badly injured and needed medical treatment.

In the sentencing, the judge said that there have been too many similar cases of late, where an innocent and helpless victim is attacked and robbed.

Both Ziad and Fahida pleaded innocent, but the court ruled that their testimonies were false.

"Fahida's lies were so obvious," the judge ruled, "he had trouble wiping the smile off his face while giving his ridiculous testimony."

The judge also praised Gravibecker for her courage to come and testify in court despite the trauma and the fact that she does not know Hebrew.

The 79-year-old woman told the court how she had been tied up for 40 minutes until she managed to escape and call for help.

Source: Ofra Idelman. Court sentences two men to 9 years in prison for robbing elderly woman. Haaretz.com (5 May 2008) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

"Tel Aviv District Court on Tuesday sentenced Eitan Farhi, known to police as the "DNA Rapist," to 25 years in prison for raping and sodomizing two women over the course of two years.

The first rape involves a 20-year-old woman from Tel Aviv who had left her apartment to take out the trash. The second victim was a 16-year-old girl who was attacked while walking home from a youth group activity in Rehovot.

Farhi, 40, was also convicted of public indecent assault, rape by aggravated assault, acts of sodomy, suborning perjury, robbery and attacking a police officer. The attacks occurred in the center of the country, but he was convicted on account of a DNA sample that he gave to police after being questioned for the 2006 murder of Anat Pleiner, a lawyer from Ramat Hasharon.

Throughout the trial, Farhi's defense attorneys, Amikam Hadar and Hedva Shapira, argued against the case's legality, pointing out that the evidence being used against their client was obtained in an unjust manner. They claim that the DNA sample Farhi gave them in the framework of a murder trial has since been held by the police illegally. Farhi's defense lawyers argued that it was illegal to compare the DNA sample given as evidence in an unrelated murder trial with the sperm found in the rape crime scenes, and to use such evidence to convict their client of rape..."

Source: Ofra Edelman, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service. Tel Aviv court sentences 'DNA Rapist' to 25 years in prison. Haaretz.com (6 May 2008) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

A 17-year-old teenager stabbed a gas station attendant [March 24] overnight in Rehovot. The attendant, who was moderately wounded, was evacuated to hospital with a stab wound in his upper torso.

Police apprehended the suspected attacker shortly thereafter and determined that he was intoxicated. Officers also uncovered a knife which was in his possession.

A preliminary investigation concluded that the motive for the attack was an argument over 20 shekels, which, according to the suspect, got stuck in the cigarette machine.

Source: JPost staff. Gas station attendant stabbed after argument over 20 shekels. JPost.com (24 March 2008) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

The Tel Aviv District Court on Sunday morning sentenced Roman Simondayev, 45, to nine years in jail for the robbery and assault of four elderly women. Simondayev confessed to the charges and the indictment served came as part of a plea bargain. The 45-year-old, who had a criminal record for drug offenses, was convicted of stealing the women's wallets, assaulted them and causing them grievous bodily harm.

Simondayev, a new immigrant, said that he attacked the women and took their possessions in order to buy drugs.

The court's verdict read: "The accused took advantage of the frailty of these elderly women in order to take their assets."

The first offense occurred on July 12, 2007 in which an elderly woman, 81, left a Bank Hapoalim branch in Rehovot carrying her purse. Simondayev approached her, grabbed her purse, lifted her wallet from it and fled the scene. He was caught and the wallet was returned to the woman. Simondayev was arrested but released on bail.

Two days thereafter, the attacker entered the flat of a 74-year-old woman in Rehovot.

Simondayev grabbed hold of her and demanded she give him money. When she responded that she didn't have any, he pulled her hair, threw her to the floor and dragged her into the middle of the room. Eventually, the woman gave him 20 NIS.

But Simondayev wasn't satisfied. He emptied her purse onto the floor, demanded the keys to the apartment, took her camera and a checkbook and left the scene.

The following day, Simondayev attacked a 75-year-old woman in Lod after she entered an elevator in her apartment building. He ran after her, got in the elevator and pressed the buttons for the 4th and 5th floors. When the elevator doors closed, he turned to the woman, demanded she hand over her purse and started to pull it away from her.

When the woman resisted, Simondayev pulled her hair and grabbed her purse while pushing her to the floor. When his victim screamed, Simondayev put his hand over her mouth. She proceeded to bite his fingers, after which he threw her to the floor of the elevator where she hit her head, injuring her hand and her neck.

Source: JPost Staff. Man gets nine years for attacks on elderly. JPost.com (23 March 2008) [FullText and Talkbacks]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

"A Rehovot woman was sentenced to a year and a half in prison, and her daughter to eight months, for attempting to arrange for the murder of her husband.

According to the Tel Aviv District Court ruling, the two tried to pay a Palestinian worker to kill the father because he had abused members of the family.

The father, meanwhile, was indicted for abuse of defenseless people."

Source: JPost.com (6 March 2008) [FullText]

Labels: Family Circle, Rehovot Criminal

Taxi driver Ya'acov Mizrahi, 72, lay recuperating in a hospital on Wednesday after a robbery attempt that cost him an eye - and nearly his life - while two young men accused of carrying out the brutal attack were remanded in custody.

Ofir Pinko, 19, and Gera Masimaoun, 21, are suspected of planning the Monday night robbery near Kibbutz Palmahim, in which Mizrahi was beaten, strangled, stabbed in the eye with a screwdriver and then left for dead by the side of an isolated road as his assailants sped off in his taxi, together with his hard-earned money.

Channel 2 reported on Wednesday night that, ironically, Pinko's mother was also a taxi driver.

The suspects' remands were extended on Wednesday by eight and nine days, and police said they hoped the ongoing investigation would lead to a "very strong indictment" against the two.

Police said that Pinko and Masimaoun had admitted under questioning that they had planned to target an elderly cab driver, assuming that an older person would be less likely to fight back.
Instead, Mizrahi resisted - and suffered the consequences.

It was sheer luck that a passer-by on the dark road noticed Mizrahi's body lying on the side of the road late Monday night and called for help. The father of four and grandfather of 10 was rushed to Assaf Harofeh Medical Center, but doctors were unable to save the eye, which had been pulled out of its socket by the force of the attack.

Mizrahi, still hospitalized but now in stable condition, said that he had responded to a call in Rehovot, where he picked up two young men who fit the suspects' general description. The passengers, who he said had been acting normally, requested that he drive them to Palmahim Beach. It was not far from their destination that the two attacked, he said.

The attorneys representing Pinko and Masimaoun, however, offered different accounts during their clients' remand-extension hearings Wednesday.
Liran Friedland, the attorney representing Pinko, claimed that her client was "a son of a very well-established family in Rehovot." She denied Pinko's involvement in the robbery.

"He was traveling with his friend to innocent 'entertainment,' when suddenly, his friend pulled out a screwdriver and began to attack the taxi driver," she said. Friedland argued that her client had had no inkling of Masimaoun's intentions and that he was in shock.

In contrast, Avi Cohen, Masimaoun's attorney, claimed exactly the opposite - that it was his client who had been the innocent bystander, and Pinko the attacker. Cohen said Masimaoun was interested in undergoing a polygraph examination to prove that his version was the true one.

Source: Rebecca Anna Stil. Two young men remanded for allegedly assaulting cabbie JPost.com (20 Feb 2008) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

Police on Tuesday arrested two men from Rehovot for allegedly assaulting a taxi driver and hijacking his cab. The victim, a 72-year-old man from the area, lost an eye in the attack. Police say the suspects, aged 19 and 21, confessed to the crime.

Yaacov Mizrahi, a pensioner who supplemented his income by occasionally driving a cab, was found lying on the side of the road near Rishon Letzion by two passersby, who called an ambulance.

Mizrahi had been assaulted and beaten by two passengers who had asked him to take them from Rehovot to Palmahim around midnight on Monday. The men stabbed Mizrahi in the eye with a screwdriver, and then made off with his cab.
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The suspects allegedly had called Mizrahi's cab company and ordered a cab from Remez Street in Rehovot. They placed the call from one of their cell phones, police said.

The Rehovot police station tracked down the suspects shortly after the incident, following an intensive investigation. The older suspect had been previously convicted of theft. The younger man did not have a police record.

Police found the cab parked in a residential area of Rehovot.

The two suspects confessed that they had planned to rob the cab driver who came to pick them up, and said they had agreed to call off their plan if the driver happened to be young, on the assumption that he would put up more of a fight, police said.

They said they were surprised that Mizrahi did put up a fight, and said this was why they assaulted him. They expressed regret for the crime, police added. They are scheduled to be arraigned this morning at the Rishon Letzion Magistrate's Court.

The medical staff at Assaf Harofeh Hospital, near Tzrifin, spent two hours trying to save Mizrahi's eye, but failed. His four children, who were staying at his bedside, told Haaretz he regained consciousness Tuesday.

"We're in shock. It's very difficult to take. We can't believe this actually happened to us. We're hurting and we are outraged," said his son Gil Mizrahi.

Last month, another cab driver was robbed, assaulted and injured in Rehovot, after his passengers refused to pay him for the ride. Suspects were arrested in the case.

"My father is a very good person who never thought anything bad could happen to him. Now they took out one his eyes and beat him all over. It's shocking. Is this what it's come to?" his son said.

In the past two years alone, two taxi drivers have been murdered. One, an Arab from East Jerusalem, was murdered in a Tel Aviv apartment by a French immigrant, who cited political motives for the killing.

Source: Roni Singer-Heruti. Two arrested for allegedly blinding and robbing cab driver, 72. Haaretz.com (20 Feb 2008) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

A 50-year-old cab driver was lightly wounded overnight Friday when he was stabbed in Rehovot.

Police said that from their initial inquiry, it appeared that the driver was attacked after he refused to take a group of youngsters in his cab claiming they were too drunk.

The man was taken to the city's Kaplan Hospital and the alleged assailants fled. Police later arrested a 20-year-old suspected of involvement in the incident.

Source: Cab driver wounded in Rehovot stabbing. JPost.com (12 Jan 2008) [Fulltext]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

Also see: Rehovot's Weizmann Institute is a Concentration Camp, Leading Israel News Source Says. My Rehovot (19 December 2007) [FullText]

Reuven Ladiansky, legal counsel for Let Animals Live, said the group intends to file a request with the Rishon Lezion Magistrates' Court to issue an injunction against the Weizmann Institute and the National Council on Animal Experimentation, in accordance with the Animal Protection Law.

Click here to see pictures and video on the vivisection of animals at the Weizmann Institute of Science (at Let Animals Live website) Warning: contains disturbing images!

"Our request relates to all the different aspects of the cruelty involved in these experiments," Ladiansky said, "the monkeys, which are social animals that need contact with their own species, are kept in small cages, and during the actual experiments they are placed in a device that does allow them to even move their heads."

The organization also plans to file a complaint with Rehovot Police, claiming that the Institute is conducting cruel experiments in violation of the Animal Protection Law, an offense punishable by up to three years in prison.

"We are hoping that indictments will be filed," Ladiansky said.

Let Animals Live said four Knesset members - Eitan Cabel (Labor), Yoel Hasson (Kadima), Gideon Sa'ar (Likud) and Dov Khenin (Hadash) - are backing the organization's initiative and have called for a special Knesset session on the matter, scheduled for Wednesday.

The Weizmann Institute of Science issued a statement saying that it "abides by all laws of the State of Israel as well as international codes of ethics (including the National Research Council) in all matters pertaining to animal experimentation and welfare. This includes minimization of suffering and an extremely high standard of animal maintenance and care. The Institute will terminate, quickly and unconditionally, any research that does not meet even one of these regulations.

"Animal experimentation is crucial to understanding various biological processes. Such understanding frequently leads to the development of medical applications (drugs and therapies) that save human lives and improve the quality of life for millions," the institute said in a statement," the Institute said.

According to the Weizmann Institute, the monkeys used in the research are rehabilitated and moved to a shelter in Ben Shemen."

Located in Rehovot major Israeli Science Institution is a well known plot of the curruption by Israel Science. My Rehovot took a leadership in enlightening the non ethical wrongdoing by the Weizmann Institute officials, that apparently serves ones private interest.

Despite the statement by the Weizmann that the Institution "abides by all laws of the State of Israel as well as international codes of ethics (including the National Research Council", the Institute did not terminate yet the employment of the currently acting Academic Secretary Boaz Avron, and Professor and Chairman Yoram Groner for their apparent professional misconduct.

Source: Dan Bentsur Ynet, Israel News. 19 December 2007, 14:40 [FullText]

Labels: Little Orange News, Rehovot Criminal, Rehovot Professional Misconduct, Weizmann Institute

'Treblinka for monkeys' slammed

Animal rights activists gather outside Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot to protest controversial brain experiments. 'Decent, broken-hearted people told me they wanted to infiltrate the institute and free the monkeys from this hell, even if it would lead to their arrest,' Let Animals Live spokeswoman says

"Free the monkeys" and "Monkeys feel the same pain humans do" were among the signs waved by some 250 animal rights activists who gathered outside the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot on Tuesday in protest of controversial experiments on animal brains.

The protest came following a week of public outcry after the release of shocking hidden-camera footage taken by a monkey caretaker who worked in the institute's labs.

Click here to see pictures and video on Let Animals Live website
(Warning: contains disturbing images)

"I received emails, faxes and phone calls from decent, broken-hearted people who said they wanted to infiltrate the institute and free the monkeys from this hell, even if it would lead to their arrest, but I told them that we must remain within the boundaries of the law," said Anat Refua, spokesperson for Let Animals Live, which organized the rally.

"Our side abides by the law; it is those inside these walls who are the criminals. We will get the monkeys out of there legally," she added.

Using a loudspeaker, Refua and former Channel 2 news anchor Gadi Sukenik called on the Institute to end the experimentations "that do not contribute anything to modern science", as passing cars honked in support, indicating widespread sympathy for the cause.

According to Refua, the entire cast of the popular satirical TV show "Eretz Nehederet (Great Country)", who are currently shooting new episodes, asked that the demonstration be postponed so that they could also attend.

Some of the protestors went as far as likening the animals' suffering to the Holocaust, and wore black t-shirts bearing the words "For the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka" – a quote by Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer in "The Letter Writer"...

Source: Dan Bentsur Ynet, Israel News. 19 December 2007, 14:40 [FullText]

Labels: Little Orange News, Rehovot Criminal, Rehovot Professional Misconduct, Weizmann Institute

Two scorched bodies were found on Tuesday in a car in Kibbutz Na'an, near Rehovot. The bodies have not yet been identified, nor do police know what led to the incident.

Firefighters were called to the scene late Monday to put out the blazing car, but did not notice the bodies inside.

The bodies were found by a civilian passing by, who called the police. Large forces arrived at the scene to collect evidence and conduct searches.

Police sources say that they have not ruled out any causes for the incident, and are investigating the possibility of a double suicide or double murder.

Source: Yigal Hai. Passer-by finds two scorched bodies in car in Kibbutz Na'an. Haaretz.com (11 December 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

"A 45-year-old Rehovot man was arrested on Wednesday night for allegedly performing indecent acts on a 16-year-old boy. The suspect, a disabled man living in a large car filled with junk, grabbed the boy as he was passing by the car, dragged him inside and molested him. The boy managed to escape, then called his father and filed a complaint with police. The suspect will be brought in for a remand extension on Thursday morning."

Source: Rehovot man, 45, arrested for molesting 16-year-old boy. JPost.com (6 September 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

"Investigators from the National Economic Crimes Unit detained two employees of the Rehovot Unemployment Office early Tuesday morning on suspicion that they helped defraud the office by stamping applicants who were not present.

A recent police investigation raised suspicions that the two, both in their 50s, had stamped "unemployed" peoples' documents as "unfit to work," thereby entitling them to benefits without requiring them to find employment.

The people in question were allegedly working without reporting their income to the authorities, simultaneously drawing unemployment benefits from the National Insurance Institute. Although they were required to report once a week to the Unemployment Office to re-approve their unemployed status, police believe the clerks okayed the stamps without the people coming in.

Instead, police suspect, a fixer, or "macher," intervened in the process and would take the forms to be stamped by the clerks. The macher would also allegedly stamp a booklet for his own wife, who was listed as "searching for employment."

The investigation began approximately a year ago based on intelligence that police received. Police said that during the undercover probe, they carried out "a number of different checks" and gathered evidence that supported and even increased the suspicions against those involved.

On Tuesday morning, the undercover part of the investigation ended with the detention of five suspects: the two clerks, the fixer and his wife, and one of the people who allegedly filed themselves as unemployed.

The suspects will be questioned by investigators in the coming days, and police are likely to request that some of the suspects be formally arrested and remanded in order prevent evidence tampering.

The suspects could face charges including receipt of bribes, fraud and breach of trust, as well as forging financial statements."

[Similar charges could be appropriate for a corrupted Academic and Grants office of the Weizmann Institute (Mr. Boaz Avron, current Academic Office and Projects head; Dr. Yoram Groner, former Weizmann's Vice-President for research), should the police further investigate criminal practices by Weizmann's academic leadership, as reported earlier, "Criminality or Irregularity? Israel State Comptroller Finds Weizmann Institute Fools Funding Bodies: Weizmann Institute Corruption Empire Downs The Integrity of Israel Science and Its International Image, an International Funding Body Must Know, MyRehovot 4 February 2007]

Source: Rebecca Anna Stoil. Rehovot: 2 detained as police uncover unemployment fraud. JPost.com (28 August 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal, Rehovot Professional Misconduct

Or Who will combat the violence by irresponsible drivers at Rehovot streets?

Traffic Police heads decided on Sunday to increase patrols on the roads, up police presence on weekends and at night, and recruit more volunteer traffic cops, following a surge in road deaths over the weekend.

After seven people were killed in car accidents throughout the country, Traffic Police head Cmdr. Avi Ben-Hamo called for an emergency meeting Sunday to discuss the issue.

Heads of traffic police from every district and police's top command were present at the discussion.

On Saturday evening, 45-year-old Moshe Solimani and his five-year-old daughter Shani were killed when a truck hit their car as they were traveling on Highway 1.

Rescue teams managed to save the mother, Irit Solimani, who had been trapped in the car, and evacuated her and the couple's son, Idan, to a nearby hospital. The mother was listed in serious condition, and the son in good condition.

The driver of the truck was found to be a serial traffic offender, with no fewer than 190 traffic violations on his record. The driver was remanded Sunday morning.

The two victims will be laid to rest at 6:30 p.m. at the cemetery in Holon.

Following the accident, police closed traffic on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Highway eastward of Lod junction for several hours.

In another accident, Uzi Natan, 55, died when he suffered a cardiac arrest while driving.

The man was traveling with his wife and son southward on Route 2 and when he suffered the attack he lost control of the vehicle, smashed into a vehicle to his right, then continued and stopped only after crashing into a security railing.

The other travelers in the car were unharmed, and medics arriving at the scene established the man's death.

Also Saturday evening, Albert Sulimanov, a worker at a carwash near Hakfar Hayarok junction was killed when a car slid toward him and hit him.

Earlier Saturday, Yosef David, an 82-year-old pedestrian was killed after he was hit by a car as he tried to cross the street at Rehovot junction; on Friday evening, Shimrit Hillel, 26, was killed in Tiberias as she was crossing the street near a hospital; and earlier Friday, 30-year-old Abed el Hija Sah was killed when his car flipped over at the entrance to the Arab village of Arava, where he lived.

Source: Police to increase traffic patrols. JPost.com (12 August 2007) [FullText and Talkbacks]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

A lawsuit filed by the Ministry of Environmental Protection has led to the imposition of a record 280,000 shekel fine on Kibbutz Na'an, located near the city of Rehovot, for water source contamination. The fine was imposed both on the kibbutz and on two of its senior officials - the farm coordinator and the dairy farm coordinator.

The defendants were charged with improperly treating dairy farm wastes on different occasions in 2000 - 2003. Piles of manure were left on exposed soil, manure and leachates overflowed toward drainage canals, large parts of the dairy farm were left exposed without sheds or suitable gutters, containment facilities did not exist and manure was allowed to wash away with the rain.

Kibbutz Na'an is located in the Soreq River watershed in the eastern part of the coastal aquifer, the main aquifer supplying pumped water in Israel.

On May 29, 2007, after the dairy farm was removed from the kibbutz and the area was cleaned up, the court convicted the defendants of the charges against them.

On August 6, 2007, the court fined the kibbutz 280,000 shekels and obligated it to sign an undertaking in the amount of 300,000 shekels to refrain from offenses under the Water Law for a two-year period. The farm coordinator was fined 3,600 shekels or 40 days imprisonment in lieu of the fine. The dairy farm coordinator was fined 750 shekels or 10 days imprisonment in lieu of the fine. The fines will be paid into the Maintenance of Cleanliness Fund.

Att. Tamar Zohar of the Legal Department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection noted that this is the highest fine imposed on a dairy farm to date. The sentence reflects the policy of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the position of the courts regarding raising the penalty level against environmental polluters in general and polluters of water sources in particular.

In the sentence, the judge related to the following, among others: "The deeds of the defendants are severe. Due only to the economic considerations of defendant 1 and his intention to transfer the dairy farm from Na?an to a more distant location using the assistance offered within the framework of the dairy farm reform, the defendants disregarded requests and inspection reports, refrained from investing in dairy farm infrastructure in Na'an and did not repair what was necessary to prevent or reduce nuisances, for a long period of time.

The defendants ignored the requests of representatives of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the inspection reports which were transferred to them and continued to operate Na'an's dairy farm, while causing the nuisances described in the sentence, although aware of the sensitive location of the dairy farm near the drainage canal."

Source: 280,000 Shekel Fine for Dairy Farm Nuisances. Environment.gov.il (Updated 14 August 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal, Rehovot Environment

"A Rehovot couple, Yitzhak and Lily Tzoref, were found dead in their apartment Monday morning in what police believe was the latest case in which a husband murdered his wife and then killed himself.

According to initial reports, Yitzhak, 68, a well-known Rehovot businessman who was a partial owner of a banquet hall, called his daughter early in the morning and told her of an argument he had with his wife, Lily, over breakfast.

A short while later, Lily, who was the manager of a radiology clinic, also apparently called her daughter to tell her about the tensions.

The concerned daughter called her older brother, asking him to go to their parents' house to try and reconcile the two. But it was her younger brother, a policeman, who arrived on the scene first. Both members of the couple were found dead, suffering gunshot wounds to their upper bodies.

Police said they believe the husband shot his wife and then himself with his licensed handgun. Hours later, Yitzhak's shocked brother said this was simply the latest example of why no citizen should need to keep firearms in their home. Had a gun not been at hand, he said, the tragic incident could have been averted.

Police said the family had no known prior history of domestic violence or complaints."

Source: Rebecca Anna Stoil. Husband shoots wife; commits suicide. JPost.com (9 July 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

"In the last week we have been witnesses to additional cases of youth murder. Triko Adma, 17, from Rehovot was stabbed to death by a bored youth, and yesterday 17-year- old Pavel Kozlov succumbed to the injuries he sustained after being beaten during the 'From Russia With Love' concert that was held last month," said Public Security Minister Avi Dichter at the opening of the meeting. "The violence among the youth is declining, but I am terrified of its power. It has taken us dozens of years to be freed of stereotypes of groups that made aliya from the Diaspora, and we must fight those stereotypes now as well."

Source: Rebecca Anna Stoil. Stats show immigrants account for 20% of youth crime. JPost.com (6 June 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

"This is the third murder in three years by an Ethiopian teenager in Rehovot. Just a year ago, an Ethiopian teenager raped and murdered 15-year-old Ma'ayan Sapir in Rehovot.

"C" is Ethiopian and lucky. He grew up in a neighborhood not unlike Adameh's in Rehovot. He was bullied and teased at school. He sniffed glue with the gang. He drank alcohol, and stopped going to school - there was no point, he was too behind in his work and no longer cared. He carried a knife and one day used it on another boy. The boy didn't die.

C was 15 then. He is not a murderer. His father cares a lot about him, but has work and isn't home to discipline him. He doesn't know how to discipline him. C's mother is at home and also doesn't know what to do about her son. There are siblings, too, who don't know how to help him either. He's a wonderful kid, artistic, graceful and thoughtful. He just grew up in a place where life is tough. He ended up on the wrong path, the path that could ruin his life forever. And he didn't know where to find help."

Source: Michele Klein. Another murder in Rehovot. JPost.com (15 June 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

Police will recommend indicting senior officials at Hartzfeld Geriatric Hospital in Gedera and Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot for allegedly performing illegal experiments on elderly patients under their care, police sources said yesterday. Four of the officials, including Dr. Shmuel Levy, deputy director of Kaplan-Hartzfeld, were arrested last October following a complaint by the Health Ministry concerning alleged immoral and illegal experiments on elderly patients. In one experiment concerning the effects of psychiatric medications on the appetites of geriatric patients, 12 of the 41 participants died.

Source: Yuval Azoulay. News in brief. Haaretz.com (29 April 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal, Rehovot Health

On Tuesday, a young man from Kiryat Malachi was moderately wounded after he was stabbed during a brawl in the industrial area of Rehovot between a group of youths from Kiryat Malachi and a group from Ramle.

Police have detained several suspects in connection to the stabbing.

Source: Eli Asheknazi. Two wounded, one seriously, in stabbings Lake Kinneret beach. Haaretz.com (24 April 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

MORE than a year ago, in a disused well located halfway between the Israeli towns of Ramle and Rehovot, Reem Abu-Ghanem met a grisly end after committing the fatal sin of falling in love with the wrong man instead of accepting the one chosen by her Bedouin family.

The 19-year-old Arab-Israeli girl became one of eight women in the same extended family killed over a horrifying six-year period.

All were victims of honour killings, murdered by their relatives on the grounds that their behaviour has brought alleged dishonour to the family. All lived in the Juriash neighbourhood of Ramle, a rough part of town where crime, unemployment and poverty rates are high among its Arab residents.

Those killed were accused of perceived sexual transgressions such as wearing clothing which was too revealing, having a relationship with a man not approved by their families or refusing to marry the man chosen for them.

In early March 2006, warned by local police that the word on the street was that she too would be killed, Reem went home, telling detectives that she would be safe because her older brother, Sliman, a 31-year-old doctor, had vowed to take care of her.

Yet he and four other brothers had agreed that Reem was to be killed. As she lay sleeping in the family's Ramle apartment, Sliman smothered her in a cloth soaked with anaesthetic drugs taken from the hospital he was working at. The other brothers then bundled her into the boot of their car before driving to a derelict cottage where they threw her body down an old well.

Rehovot police now know that the young woman woke up from her drug-induced coma as her brothers opened the boot. "We know she begged for her life but they used a stone to hit her on the head," said Inspector Limor Yehuda. "She was still alive and was thrown into the well injured and screaming and then left there to die."

A prison informant tipped off police, who later arrested Sliman and his four brothers who are now in jail awaiting trial.

Despite the arrests, the killings did not stop. On January 16 this year, Reem's cousin, Hamda, also 19, was shot nine times in the head by her brother, Kamal.

The teenager, who loved jeans and did not wear a head covering, had already spent several years in and out of hiding. One afternoon - only days after writing a note to her mother that she feared for her life since she had made it clear that she was not willing to marry a man chosen by the men in the family - Hamda was shot dead as she lay on her bed.

But Hamda's tragic death was the final straw for the women of the Abu-Ghanem family. To the amazement of the Israeli police - who say they normally confront a wall of silence from families when investigating honour killings - 10 women came forward to talk to investigators within days of the murder. Hamda's mother, Imama, even gave an interview to Israeli television. "Nowhere is it written in the Koran for you to kill your sister," she said. "If I had been at home at night, I would have told her brother to save the last bullet for himself."

"It was such, such a huge step for this to happen," said Inspector Yehuda. "You have got to understand that they were silent for years despite seeing their sisters, their mothers or their daughters getting killed in front of them."

Thanks to the women's testimonies, Kamal Abu-Ghanem was charged with his sister's murder and is also now awaiting trial. But Hamda's sister, Jasmin, who allegedly witnessed the death, has since gone missing.

Ramle's streets are now full of talk about the Abu-Ghanem murders. A working-class town of nearly 70,000, it is one of the few Israeli towns with a mixed population of Arabs and Jews, with Arabs making up 20% of its residents.

Some in the Arab community are attempting to address the problem, such as social worker, Sama Salima-Eghbarieh, who runs educational programmes for young Bedouin women between the ages of 13 and 25 at a local community centre.

Salima-Eghbarieh's programmes primarily encourage the women to overcome strong family pressure and stay at school - a key problem for Bedouin girls who are told that it is better and safer for them to stay at home in the care of their families. Salima-Eghbarieh also managed to bring together representatives of key Bedouin families in Ramle, public figures and religious leaders for a series of meetings on the murders.

"It's the case of teaching self-empowerment, and while it's good that the women are talking, we still have a long way to go," Salima-Eghbarieh said.

Another outspoken Arab leader is Dr Auni Khil, a general practitioner who lives and works in Ramle. "Somebody must say 'stop the killings', and tell these men to instead use their power to seek a better job, better housing or better conditions for their families," he said.

Source: Annette Young. Women expose killers in their midst NEWS.scotsman.com (22 April 2007) [FullText]
IN RAMLE
Last updated: 22-Apr-07 01:26 BST

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

Police hold meeting between actor Rami Heuberger and his accuser
By Roni Singer-Heruti

Actor Rami Heuberger and the make-up artist who accused him of sexual assault held a face-to-face meeting on Wednesday at the Rehovot police station.

The meeting went on for an hour and a half, during which both sides presenting their version of events to the police.

The complainant stated in the meeting that Heuberger committed indecent behavior and grabbed her breasts. Heuberger stated that he remembered meeting the woman but denied her version of events.

Police investigators still have not decided which version of events they believe, and the case file will be handed over to the Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office in the coming days for a decision on the matter.

Heuberger was questioned by police 10 days ago on suspicion of sexually assaulting a make-up artist who he worked with a year ago.

During the questioning, Heuberger denied the charges against him and was released on bond with a restraining order issued against him to stay away from the complainant.

The complainant, a young Tel Aviv resident, filed a complaint last week, saying Heuberger sexually assaulted her during a cigarette break the two shared while working on a student film on a moshav near Rehovot.

Heuberger characterized the complaint against him as "empty, ugly, and lies."

Source: By Roni Singer-Heruti, Haaretz Correspondent. Police hold meeting between actor Rami Heuberger and his accuser. Haaretz.com (14 March 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

The central district prosecution yesterday appealed to the Tel Aviv District Court against the sentence given to Attorney Eyal Schaefer, who was convicted of indecent acts on an 11-year-old boy. The Rehovot Magistrate's Court sentenced Schaefer to six months' community service and a NIS 100,000 fine to be paid to the plaintiff as part of a plea bargain.

Source: Nir Hasson. News in Brief. Haartez.com (6 March 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal, Rehovot Professional Misconduct

by Roni Singer-Heruti

Actor Rami Heuberger was questioned for about two and a half hours yesterday by Rehovot police detectives after a makeup artist alleged that he sexually molested her on a film set about a year ago.

The woman filed her complaint last weekend at Yarkon District headquarters in Tel Aviv, but the case was transferred to Rehovot because the alleged incident occurred within that city's jurisdiction.

The complainant says she and Heuberger were sharing a joint while filming at a moshav near Rehovot when he touched her inappropriately.

In her police statement, the complainant said she was completely shocked and upset by the incident, and it took her about a year before she recovered enough to contact a lawyer. She and her lawyer submitted her version of events to Maariv - which published the story last Friday - at about the same time they went to the police.

Heuberger has denied all the allegations against him, but confirmed he was on the film set at the time the acts allegedly took place.

The investigation is to continue over the next several days, with police questioning individuals who witnessed the complainant's behavior on the day in question. Detectives also plan to stage a confrontation between Heuberger and his accuser.

Source: Roni Singer-Heruti. Police quiz actor over molestation claim. Haaretz.com (6 March 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

By Roni Singer-Heruti

In his first public response to the sexual harassment complaint filed against him, actor Rami Heuberger yesterday said the allegations were "fallacious and ugly."

Heuberger's lawyer, Eithan Maoz, read a statement written by his client in which he attacked the woman's claims that were first revealed a few days ago in a story carried by the Hebrew-language daily Ma'ariv. "It's very strange how the complainant claims to have undergone a traumatic experience that caused her hallucinations and would report them only a year after she says they occurred. It is strange that she should choose to do so in a revealing story in a daily newspaper before filing a complaint," Heuberger wrote.

According to Heuberger, such behavior can only be explained by the complainant's thirst for publicity and money. He added that he plans to submit his full account to the police and not the media.

Meanwhile, Rehovot police opened an investigation into the woman's complaint, which holds that Heuberger harassed her when she worked as a make-up stylist on the set of a movie he was starring in.

Heuberger first rose to fame as a member of the television skit show Hahamishia Hakamerit. He later starred in numerous Israeli feature films, including the cult movie Mivtza Safta and even landed a small role in director Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning "Schindler's List."

Source: Roni Singer-Heruti. Actor denies sexual harassment claims. Haartez.com (4 March 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

The Rehovot Municipality gave preferential treatment to individuals with connections to the mayor and deputy mayor, raising suspicions of conflicts of interest. In one case, benefits were granted to a college that employed the son of Mayor Yehoshua Forer and the daughter of then-deputy mayor Haim Avraham. In another case, a consulting firm that worked with Forer before his election was chosen to provide public relations services for the municipality.


In the case of the college, the mayor attended meetings with the college's CEO regarding matters including tender-exempt land grants, despite suspicions of conflict of interest due to his son. State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss notes that the municipality agreed to offset the college's electricity debts, estimated at NIS 232,000. In practice, the municipality exempted the college from paying any of its electrical bills for about five years. The value of the electricity was equal to the rent the college paid the municipality over three years.

The municipality initiated relations with the Danus-Naveh media consulting firm, which worked for the mayor during the 2003 mayoral elections. The municipality's legal advisor maintained that a company could be hired for such a job only after a tender was issued, but the mayor went with an external legal advisor, who approved the relationship. After a temporary contract with Danus-Naveh was signed, the municipality considered a few firms and then ultimately chose Danus.

The comptroller says that this raises the suspicion that the municipality examined other firms only to create the impression of fair competition.

"This kind of behavior may harm public trust in elected officials and local government, and undermine the foundations of the system of national government," wrote the comptroller.

Source: Zafrir Rinat. State Comptroller's Report / Local Authorities: Rehovot / Municipality waives debts owed by employer of mayor's son. Haaretz.com (22 February 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal, Rehovot Municipality

The National Insurance Institute official arrested last week for allegedly molesting and committing other indecent acts against 14 employees was named Sunday as 52-year-old Rehovot resident Yossi Kasri, a senior official in the National Insurance Institute.

For the past two years, Kasri has served as the director of the Rishon Letzion branch of the NII. Before that, he directed the Jerusalem branch, among other branches.

Police plan to release Kasri on bail under restricting conditions on Sunday.

According to the police, Kasri has cooperated with the investigation against him. Police hope the release of his name will prompt other victims to come forward with their complaints. At present, around half the complaints against Kasri are from women who were employed at his branch of the NII as part of their national service.

The investigation into Kasri's activities was launched after an anonymous letter reached the desk of the police commissioner six weeks ago. The complaint was passed on to the police's financial crime investigation unit, which is responsible for investigations related to the NII.

The letter led investigators to one of the complainants against Kasri, and through her, to another. Complaints against Kasri had also been filed with the disciplinary department of the civil service commission. These included allegations that Kasri had committed indecent acts against female employees, and/or sexually harassed them.

The police reported last week that Kasri had confessed to having committed the acts attributed to him.

Kasri's attorney responded to the police saying that his client was a "father figure" who admitted to embracing his female employees affectionately. He also admits to having kissed them on the cheek but denies touching workers' genitals. He also denies the allegation that any contact with his female employees was done out of any kind of sexual desire.

The police investigation found that the alleged harassment may have been going on for at least two years. The investigation also found that Kasri had been warned about his behavior toward women co-workers in the past.

Source: Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent. NII branch director suspected of indecent acts against 14 women (25 February 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

Police in Rehovot know that Netanel Sisa'i, an Ethiopian immigrant, was arguing with his wife Sarah in their apartment the day she fell - or was pushed - out of the third-floor window to her death. Police also know he was convicted in an Ashkelon court several years ago for beating and threatening her. Furthermore, they have heard from the victim's grown children that their father tried to kill their mother more than once, while beating and threatening her throughout their 20-plus years of marriage, beginning in Ethiopia.

"He had a history of violence against her, and I have no doubt, on the basis of his behavior around the time of the incident and from the evidence at the scene, that he was responsible for her death. If he didn't push her, then it was his words and threats that caused her to jump. A person doesn't just jump out of the window without provocation," says Insp. Yarden Calendarov, who headed the investigation into Sarah Sisa'i's October 21, 2005 death in the city's heavily Ethiopian neighborhood of Kiryat Moshe.

However, Netanel Sisa'i, in his mid-40s as his wife was at her death, was never charged with murder. "We had no evidence. We went door-to-door and nobody was willing to testify," Calendarov says. Police couldn't get Netanel to confess, either. "He didn't cooperate at all," he says.

When Sisa'i was in the holding tank, though, an undercover cop heard him threaten to kill his deceased wife's mother, and he was held in jail on this minor charge, then placed under house arrest in the home of family members in Ashdod, where he is now. The court, however, is expected to let him go free in the coming months. "The maximum sentence for this crime [of threatening murder] is three years, but the court usually doesn't give more than a few months," says Calendarov.

Sarah's son, Avi, 22, was serving in the IDF as a medic when she died. He is extremely bitter over how the police handled the case. "The police didn't seem too interested. They did a superficial job of investigating," he says, adding that this is a complaint made often by Ethiopian immigrants seeking police intervention against violent husbands and fathers.

Avi says neighbors told him and his sisters that right after their mother's death, which happened around 8:30, they saw Netanel run down from the apartment and try unsuccessfully to drag her body away, then give up and run off. Avi adds that one of Netanel's sisters said he admitted the murder to her and asked her for money to fly to Ethiopia.

But police did not consider any of this information credible. "The children were very manipulative in what they told us," says Calendarov. When told of his use of the term "manipulative," Avi says angrily that this just illustrates the police's lax handling of the case.

"We've lost all faith in the authorities," he says, adding that about two months before her death, his mother asked the Rehovot welfare department to get her and her two younger daughters into a battered women's shelter. "They told her they could find a shelter for her, but not with the two girls, so she decided not to go," Avi notes.

I asked the Rehovot spokesman's office about this and was told, "The details as presented are not accurate, to put it mildly. The applicant in question received a response in line with her request and her situation as she described it."

Orna Ben-Zvi, head of municipal welfare services in Kiryat Moshe, says that in the six months the Sisa'i family lived in the neighborhood prior to Sarah's death, she did not apply to her office to go to a shelter, nor did she or anyone else in the family complain to her office about Netanel's violence. "The only contact she made with our office was to request material help once," says Ben-Zvi... [read on at JPost.com]

Source: Larry Derfner. A death foretold. JPost.com (8 Feb 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal

Substitute teacher at Hadarom yeshiva in Rehovot convicted by Ramle Magistrates Court of committing indecent act against student; ‘I was driven by sexual urges,’ she tells investigators

It was cleared for publication on Sunday that a substitute teacher at the Hadarom yeshiva in Rehovot was convicted by the Ramle Magistrates Court of having sexual relations with one of her students.

The teacher has admitted to the charges in the framework of a plea bargain, and now the prosecution is expected to demand that the court sentence her to community service and a suspended sentence.

The affair was revealed a year-and-a-half ago, when the teacher was suspected of having sexual relations with five of her students. A police investigation found that she would phone her students and invite them to her home for private lessons, during which she also had sex with them.

A parent of one of the students noticed a change in her son’s behavior and eventually informed police of the teacher’s misconduct. Meanwhile, the yeshiva also filed a complaint against the teacher, who said she was driven by sexual urges.

“It was a dumb thing to do and I regret it,” she told investigators.

The teacher said the sex was consensual. After her admission the teacher was released and ordered not to show up at the yeshiva until the investigation’s conclusion.

The teacher was convicted of committing an indecent act against only one student, and she will apparently be sentenced only after the court is briefed by her probation officer.

Source: Eli Senyor Yeshiva teacher convicted of having sex with pupil. Ynetnews.com (8 January 2007) [FullText]

Labels: Rehovot Criminal, Rehovot Lover