MK Bitan faces multiple bribery allegations
Rishon LeZion Businessman Moshe Yosef becomes embroiled in MK Bitan's corruption scandal, with police suspecting he laundered money for the MK, financed daughter's wedding to curry favor in winning lucrative tenders; in another incident, Bitan suspected of accepting bribes to assist in obtaining lucrative Tel Aviv building permits.
Police investigators working on the Rishon LeZion corruption probe suspect that businessman Moshe Yosef bribed Coalition Chairman MK David Bitan (Likud) by paying roughly a quarter of a million shekels to fund his daughter's wedding.
Last August MK Bitan married off his daughter Galit at the Lago Events Hall in Western Rishon LeZion. The grand wedding was attended by hundreds of guests, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ministers and MKs, and was extensively covered by the media.
As part of the investigation into the affair, the sale of the tract of land on which the prestigious banquet hall is located is also being examined by police.
Investigators suspect that Bitan's associate, Yosef, who owns the Masada furniture store in Rishon LeZion and was identified as a central suspect alongside Bitan in the affair, financed the wedding as a bribe to the MK, who ostensibly helped his associates win the tender for development and infrastructure projects in the city's "Thousand Compound."
MK Bitan denied the allegations and said during his interrogation that "like every young couple, the funding for the wedding came from the gifts they received. We paid the entire amount in cash to the hall's owner from checks that the couple received from the guests."
Channel 10 News reported Monday investigators were in possession of a recorded conversation between Bitan and Yosef, which police claimed implicated the coalition chairman.
In the conversation, Yosef says, "I brought you the $1,500 you asked for."
Bitan replies, "Thank you, how much is it in shekels?"
"5,600 or 5,700, something like that," said Yosef, and Bitan responded: "Round it up to 6,000 and bring it to me."
During his interrogation last Thursday, Yosef collapsed in the offices of the Civil Administration and was evacuated to a hospital where he was hospitalized at the end of the week and then returned to detention.
"His hand is everywhere," Judge Amit Michaels said about Yosef in his decision to remand him by eight more days.
Yosef's lawyers defended him, saying that, "This is a person who collapsed because of the pressure exerted on him by interrogators. They repeatedly try to turn him into a state witness and try to break his spirit."
Even before the affair became public, detectives from the police's Lahav 433 anti-corruption unit fingered Yosef as a central figure that possibly connects all their suspects.
Investigators began to strongly suspect during the course of their inquiry that Yosef had committed various tax offenses and requested a court order to wiretap him. They were allowed to do so, and so they did—for more than a year.
A few months ago, police went so far as to install hidden cameras inside his furniture store. For months, investigators collected evidence of alleged tax crimes to the tune of millions of shekels, involving, among other things, forging fictitious invoices and money laundering.
Moreover, listening to recordings of Yosef revealed the close connection he had with Bitan, who used to come to the furniture store every day and talk to him about the "Thousand Compound" project.
"We suspect he acted as David Bitan's bank," said a source close to the investigation.
"He received a lot of money. He laundered, loaned and transferred money to (Bitan). He did not just sell furniture," the police asserted.
This information was presented to the judge, who decided to extend Yosef's detention by 12 more days, during which the police tried to persuade him to incriminate his associates, pressing him for hours with evidence concerning alleged money laundering, fictitious invoices and tax evasion.
Fictitious contract to facilitate a bribe for municipal access
The corruption affair Bitan was embroiled in did not stop at the Rishon LeZion city limits however, with police finding alleged links between the beleaguered MK and corruption involving the purchase of land for development in a Tel Aviv project.
Police arrested a Tel Aviv woman Monday accused of bribing Bitan in conjunction with the project. The woman allegedly lobbied real estate developer Dror Glazer in order to obtain building permits for lucrative land she owns in south Tel Aviv. Police suspect Glazer paid Bitan NIS 150,000 for assistance in advancing the matter.
Glazer was set to receive one million shekels if the building permit was eventually issued and it is alleged Bitan assisted Glazer by talking to senior municipal officials and in getting a crucial appointment at the Tel Aviv municipality.
Police have obtained a contract drawn between the parties that states Glazer received NIS 150,000 and will receive the balance of a million upon obtaining a building permit from the municipality.
Police suspect the contract was fictitious, and was merely a means of transferring bribe money to Glazer, some of which he had later passed on to Bitan.
Bitan's attorney Efraim Damari defended his client saying: "MK David Bitan answered all the investigator's questions and has nothing to hide. Any further response to the article can interfere with the investigation."
