Major-General Menashe Arviv cited what he called unfair treatment by police, the legal system and the media as the reason for his resignation.
Arviv, left, and Pinto several years ago
Top Cop In Kabbalist’s Bribery Case Abruptly Resigns
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
A top cop allegedly involved in the bribery scandal surrounding Sefardi haredi kabbalist Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto has abruptly resigned, the Ma’ariv and Times of Israel reported.
Major-General Menashe Arviv reportedly cited what he called unfair treatment by police, the legal system and the media as the reason for his resignation.
Arviv headed the Israel Police national crime and corruption investigation unit known as Lahav 433. He allegedly accepted bribes from Pinto – who is himself under investigation for bribery, embezzlement and related fraud and corruption – while he was the Israel Police liaison to the NYPD several years ago.
“I can no longer tolerate the conduct of the legal system that is rolling me and my family in feathers and tar. I have decided to end the witch hunt and therefore I have decided to leave the Israel Police,” Arviv said at a press conference held today in his attorney’s office in Tel Aviv.
Arviv claimed that over the past month he had repeatedly asked police and the attorney general to be allowed to give his version of the events but was never allowed to do so.
“I have several times appealed to the attorney general, the state attorney and police commissioner [Yohanan Danino] and asked them to call me in for investigation so that I can respond to every accusation against me. I have been sitting at home for about a month and no one has contacted me. No one has asked for my version,” Arviv said.
Arviv also attacked an alleged back room deal in which Pinto was allegedly given a favorable no-prison plea deal in exchange for information on bribing Arviv. That alleged deal was allegedly instigated by Pinto’s representatives who offered the information – information Arviv insists is false – in exchange for extreme leniency.
Pinto is the seventh most wealthy rabbi in Israel and is close to many leading business and political figures there and to leading Israeli businessmen in New York City, where he lives about half of the time.
“It seems that someone, and everyone knows who we are talking about, who is facing serious charges, approached the attorney general and offered him false information,” Arviv reportedly said today.
Pinto is reportedly also allegedly under FBI investigation in New York and may have also been the target of a blackmail attempt.
In 2012, Pinto and his wife were arrested in Israel after his wife gave a briefcase full of cash to another top police cop, Deputy Inspector General Ephraim Bracha. But Bracha was working with police and the transfer was recorded. Pinto’s wife tried to commit suicide soon afterward.
Several years ago, Pinto’s Hazon Yeshaya charity stole large food donations earmarked for Holocaust survivors and sold the food on Israel’s gray market. It’s top staffers pocketed the cash and allegedly gave much of it to Pinto.
Israel’s government charities supervision agency reprimanded Hazon Yeshaya but failed to shut it down and allegedly failed pass the files on the thefts to police.
But police nonetheless found out about the thefts, which were eventually reported by Ha’aretz and other Israeli media, and reportedly launched its own investigation, prompting Pinto to try to find out how much police actually knew about the embezzlement by trying to bribe Bracha and, apparently Arviv.