Corruption case in Beit Shemesh: The Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment today (Tuesday) against senior public employees in the Beit Shemesh municipality, developers and lawyers for bribery and breach of trust, fraud and forgery in aggravated circumstances, offenses against planning and construction laws, fraud in aggravated circumstances, tax offenses, money laundering and other offenses. Additional, each according to its share. Among the defendants, Deputy Mayor Moshe Montag, to whom the prosecution attributes offenses of fraud and breach of trust.
According to the indictment, this is a corrupt connection forged between entrepreneurs and activists and municipal officials during the years 2010 to 2018, and the many criminal acts committed during the construction of a large-scale real estate project on a plot of land in the city. In September 2016, the rights to the plot were sold and from that date, until the opening of the investigation in the case, first through companies and associations, the project for Satmar storks.
An education complex has become a huge project
The prosecution believes that the construction of the project was possible only due to severe corruption of senior municipal employees in those years – including Deputy Mayor Moshe Montag accused, among other things, of fraud and breach of trust, city engineer Danny French, suspected, among other things, of accepting bribes from one of the developers. And local attorney general Motti Berkowitz, who is suspected, among other things, of fraudulent offenses. According to the indictment, public employees allowed the design and construction of the project, even though they knew it was a residential building, in violation of the law.
In addition, the defendants seized a plot of land designated for the construction of a 3-story “institution-Torah center” for the benefit of the neighborhood’s residents, and through sophisticated deception and government corruption, built “Shikun Yoel”: a high-rise construction complex, including a 3-story commercial center and three towers Including dozens of residential apartments, which were sold at a discounted price to families in the ultra-Orthodox community – while ignoring planning laws and committing serious tax offenses and money laundering. In addition, the indictment was also filed against other defendants, including companies associated with the project.
“Serious damage to the proper functioning of local government authorities”
“The gap between the original designation of the plot according to the master plan, and the real estate project established in it, which includes a commercial center and dozens of residential apartments – was achieved through a long and sophisticated series of fraud and concealment by the defendants, each according to his part, as well as a series of “Offenses in the areas of planning and construction and tax – so that the project was built while evading a procedure to change the purpose of the plot, from paying millions of shekels to the Israel Land Authority for the improvement of the property, and other requirements for a commercial and residential developer,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Prosecutors from the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office said: “The indictment describes the long-term criminal conduct of entrepreneurs and public employees, who acted in deceptive and corrupt ways to promote private interests, while severely harming the public interest, evading payment of fees and taxes in the tens of millions of NIS, and severely violating integrity. The action of local government authorities. “
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