Ultra-Orthodox baby trafficker investigated for aiding draft dodgers
Already a suspect for baby trafficking, Haredi businessman Haim Aharon Yosefi reveals to Yedioth Ahronoth undercover journalist how he issues military service exemptions through psychiatrists who work with the IDF; despite being arrested on the matter less than a year ago, Yosefi declares: "They did not put any restrictions on me, I continue to do everything."
Haim Aharon Yosefi, a leading ultra-Orthodox businessman and a member of the Lithuanian faction Degel HaTorah, was caught by a Yedioth Ahronoth journalist on Sunday. This after already being exposed Sunday in an investigation into his trafficking in newborn babies.
This is not the first time Yosefi was detained over suspicions that he provided psychiatric exemptions from IDF service: six months ago, he was arrested and interrogated on suspicion of helping to exempt young Haredi men from military service for a fee.
During his meetings with "Devorah Leah," the undercover investigator who presented herself as a young pregnant Haredi woman, Yosefi revealed a great deal of his work in the field. He described his method, spoke about his clients, and boasted that the police had not been able to obtain enough evidence to indict him.
"My father, like any normal ultra-Orthodox father, wanted me to get an exemption even though I had not been in the yeshiva since I was 16, so I was obligated to enlist," said Shlomi (not his real name, who spoke on condition of anonymity). "My father arranged a meeting with Yosefi and told me, 'I came to an agreement with him over NIS 15,000. If you do not go to him, so help me!'
"I waited in his office at Lev Shomea, and a few more men were waiting for him ahead of me. He explained to me how to play it crazy, and I told him, 'I'm not proud but I have some self-respect, I am not going to do anything like that.'
"Yosefi replied to me, 'If you want your prick to be used once (meaning to get married—ed), you have to do what I say.' He then continued to scold me, 'I did not ask you to go and cover yourself with pee. There are guys who do that to get an exemption.'
"He told me he would send me to a psychiatrist to build a story that would sound credible. He assured me that I had nothing to worry about, 'I will send you to the right people at the right times, and I will arrange everything for you.'
"I severed contacts with him eventually, but from my friends' stories I know for a fact that he has connections within the army."
'Everyone comes to me'
Doron Benamo, who was the Jerusalem District Police chief superintendent at the time, spoke the investigation against Yosefi, which was launched last February."There was a suspicion involving documents forgery and use. Some machers in the ultra-Orthodox sector would find recruits, take them to a psychiatrist, and for NIS 500-800 they would issue permits that they are not fit to serve in military because of a mental problem."
The police claimed that more than NIS 100,000 was found while seraching Yosefi's home, arranged in packages marked with names and other personal details. The investigation seemed to uncover that each client received a document attesting to various mental issues from which he allegedly suffered, and which he would submit in the course of his enlistment in the army.
The investigation included the testimony of several psychiatrists. The remands of Yosefi and another suspect were extended several times, and at the end of the interrogation they were released under restrictive conditions.
"I'll tell you a secret," Yosefi said to Devorah Leah. "The biggest idiot sits in front of you. I had NIS 70,000. For six months year it was where only God and I knew where it was. (Then—ed) for six days it lay on the table in my living room. They searched the house, eight detectives, and found the money. I had explanations: I said that NIS 30,000 belonged to Itzik. I thought it was a given that they would turn to Itzik. But they did not do that.
"I said I was doing a lot of charity work. They asked, 'When your wife needs money, does she take it from the envelopes?' I understood what they were going for. I said that no way, it's for charity. If she needs any, she asks me for it. Because if it's for charity, how could I take from it.
"They tried to say, 'Oh, you did not report income.' I said, sorry, you're right, but I have not reported any expenses, either. They also found all sorts of papers, of psychiatrists. Thank God, it's over. "
What do you actually do? Tell them how to act crazy?
"I guide them on how to do it because I know how. I'm Familiar with all the details of the law. In all modesty, I am considered number one in the country in that respect. Then they suspected me of falsifying documents in order to exempt yeshiva students."
And they all really come to you?
"Everyone comes to me."
Then what?
"I help them see ... Today I am the number one professor in the world in dealing with these matters."
What do you mean 'in the world'? Does this not happen only in Israel?
"No, if for example the (Chabad) emissary in Katmandu or in Cyprus or in Russia comes to me. His son is an Israeli. I helped a rabbi in Russia who had trouble with his two children."
What do you do in most cases, arrange psychiatrists?
"Yes."
And they caught you?
"They suspected me."
What do you mean 'they suspect?' You say you did it.
"Look, you need proof. If, for example, someone killed someone, everyone knows that there is a living person here and a dead person there. Now the suspicion is that there is a connection between the murderer and the murdered. Then there is doubt whether I deliberately murdered, whether it was accidental, deliberate, coerced."
In short, they failed to prove a connection.
"I've been out of this nightmare for seven months now. They found a few documents, I spent 25 hours in interrogation, eight days in detention and another week under house arrest, and I had my version of the story. I told them that I'm just a consultant."
So that's it, it's over?
"I didn't hear from them for seven months now. Someone told me that the law says that if you do not interrogate me within 180 days, even if you want to file an indictment, there needs to be a hearing beforehand.
"Look, however it ends, it brought me closer to God. I sat for eight days (in detention). It was very hard for me. I sat in interrogations like Aryeh (Deri), but when I finished the interrogations I was crushed, confused, broken. Not from the conditions, but from the confusion of what they know and what they do not know. I was worried about that."
You lucked out.
"I hope I really did. They did not put any restrictions on me, I continue to do everything (I did before)."
'I am the state champion in deals'
Yossi (not his name, who also spoke on condition of anonymity), tried another Haredi businessman before reaching Yosefi.He presented us with a serious psychiatric diagnosis given to him by a psychiatrist through the same anonymous businessman. However, the diagnosis did not help, and so Yossi eventually turned to Yosefi, who asked that he pay him NIS 7,000 in cash.
According to Yossi, when Yosefi took the money, he stressed that it was "for the needs of the family," a term repeated in other testimonies heard by Ynet.
"I came to the office as a normal guy," said Yossi, "the mental health officer told me that I was fit to enlist. Later, in a meeting with Yosefi, he inquired about which mental health officer spoke to me and arranged another meeting with her.
"A week later, she said I was fit for service. I met with her again and this time she she said I was not fit to serve, and that's how I was exempted."
Yosefi sits in his office at Lev Shomea, an arm of Lev L'Achim—a large organization of Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox Jewry, connected to the most prominent rabbis and politicians in the sector.
During the many hours the Yedioth Ahronoth investigator spent with him, Yosefi held talks with young people and their parents who approached him to help them avoid the draft—boys or girls from the ultra-Orthodox, religious or secular sectors.
At some point, an interesting conversation took place. It deals with a well-known story, which even reached the courts, about a girl who sought to evade the mandatory draft by declaring herself to be religious, even though the IDF proved that she was not.
In the coming days, it turns out, she is supposed to receive her punishment, and her relatives have turned to Yosefi again to try and help. "Listen," he tells the person on the other end of the line, "she's going to sit (in jail) for 14 days, but even if she sits for 20 days, it's worth it."
When the long conversation ends, he sums up the story to Devorah Leah.
"I'll tell you, it's sad," he added. "A very beautiful girl whose mother is crazy. She came to me because I am familiar with the laws, said that her daughter is newly religious and does not want to enlist. I told her a hundred time—they're looking at her Facebook account and to be careful.
"I met her at Crown Plaza. A girl comes in with pants, from a secular school. Doesn't look like a classic ultra-Orthodox or a classic religious girl. You see by her appearance that she is on the fence (about religion)."
And what happened with that?
"Even though the mother is a lawyer, I drafted her letters. But then it turned out that in her meeting with the IDF, they revealed two pictures to her daughter: One in which she embraces a guy, and in the other one she is seen on a Friday night at a club or in a non-kosher restaurant."
Yosefi then calls back to the relative he was speaking with, and they try to find a solution. Yosefi is pessimistic this time, does not believe it's possible, and blames the mother for the mess. "There is nothing to do," he said to the person on the phone.
"I am the state champion in deals, but you do not understand how much they want her to go down for this. She managed to irritate everyone in the system. Forget it, we'll invest in this and the mother will say that we said her daughter's crazy. I'm not going anywhere near that mother."
Minutes passed, and a secular couple whose son was arrested by the IDF as a deserter entered the office.
Yosefi gives them a demonstration, explains the procedures to them and shows them all the tricks. "I offered to arrange a confirmation letter for them as if he is repeating ... the 12th grade," he said. "It's impossible to recruit someone who is in high school. So yes, he already finished high school and has to be drafted, but if he needs to repeat the 12th grade, he cannot be recruited. Maybe in a year. And in another year he will suddenly say (he has become religious). They are not going to know that the approval for repeating the grade is for a religious school."
And so it went on at each of his meetings. Telephone calls, brief visits. From time to time he switched from his cell phone to the landline at his office, a lesson from the investigation that is still being conducted against him. He prefers to be careful, even though he reveals it all to Devorah Leah, including personal details that were left out of the article for legal reasons or at the police's request.
At the end of their second meeting , almost as an afterthought, Devorah Leah told him as if by chance that her cousin is supposed to be drafted into the IDF because he left the yeshiva and therefore cannot be exempted for religious reasons. "He can come to me," Yosefi suggests. "We may have to pull some strings for him."
Our correspondent Yishai Porat spoke with Yosefi on Sunday, who said: "I refuse to give any response. I think the article is completely false. That's the last thing I'm going to say to you."
