How Jewish American pedophiles hide from justice in Israel

a CBS News investigation has uncovered a loophole that allows accused and convicted American pedophiles to escape justice by moving to Israel so an lien has been following this for more than a year and he traveled to Israel for this investigation he worked with a group that tracks people accused of sex crimes which estimates dozens of Americans have used this loophole so you know he's 6 foot 2 we are honest de gallons looking for this man Jimmy Julius Cairo 48 years old and wanted on charges of sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl in Oregon back in 2000 and a five year old girl in Israel in 2001 he's considered dangerous but these photos are a few years old so we don't know if he'll look the same he remains elusive previous attempts to capture him have failed obviously the fear that he would somehow figure out that anyone's looking for him and bolt he just called his Shawna Aronson got a tip that Cara's expected at this clinic near Tel Aviv who's gonna call she's with JCW Jewish community watch an organization that hunts down accused pedophiles who flee to Israel from the US exploiting a process called Law of Return whereby any Jewish person can move to Israel and automatically gain citizenship the ease with which pedophiles seem able to use this law as an escape route haunts victims like mehndi ha who says he was abused from age 8 by teacher and Orthodox Jewish school in Los Angeles so your classroom is right here how does it feel being back um I was very anxious and you know stressed it's coming back and a lot of memories coming through my mind memories of his alleged abuser Mordechai Yom Tov who taught him Hebrew studies when he was just 8 years old so in the beginning he would just rub me like outside of my pants and then I would say three or four months later he started going like in reaching down your dad so what'd you do why did you feel like you couldn't tell anyone I was scared I was ashamed I mean I just didn't know what people think of me the whole situation yom tov pled guilty in 2002 to sexually abusing and committing lewd acts against three other boys he served jail time but when he was released he violated his probation and according to JCW fled to Israel with help from individuals within the Orthodox Jewish community jcw tracked yom tov down and confronted him with a hidden camera in jerusalem where he admitted to illegally fleeing the united states with help and using a fake passport to enter Israel he had this message for his victims the other person in this video is mayor C Walt the founder of Jewish community watch he tells CBS news young toughs case isn't uncommon in the Orthodox community the same thing that's going on in the Catholic Church right now around the world the exact same thing happens in our community the rabbi say it's you know what he promised he's gonna go for therapy he's never gonna do it again boom he's in another community few years later he's at the same thing when we hear more allegations that the person continued to abuse children and often those abusers end up in Israel Rabbi Yehuda Oppenheimer says he unwittingly helped Cairo escape there was nothing that raised any red flags up to the point where he was moving to Israel well I wish I could say that but unfortunately I can't say that so he had violated his parole and and now they were looking for him he said that there was something in the past and it happened when he was young but nothing had ever happened since I've changed and I'm a different person now and but god help me I felt that I could trust him so I wrote him a letter and he bought a ticket and he left Cairo is accused of abusing more children when he got to Israel what was that like for you when you found that out very thankful rabbi Oppenheimer says the reason he came forward is to shine a light on the process of accused pedophiles fleen helped ensure it doesn't happen again back at the stakeout an ambulance pulls up and a man steps out it kero I was definitely definitely him oh my god okay the police are called and eventually arrived his days on the run are over as he's led away did you assault the girl in the United States is real because you assaulted the girl in the United States have you ever assaulted any girls in Israel do you know that you're wanted by Interpol there's relief as police escort him to their car this marks the end to a month-long manhunt I have something I need to tell you okay we found him and he was just arrested he was just arrested emunah not her real name is the person on the other end of the line she was a little girl when carol entered her life I was five year four or five years old my mother was on Bad West my father's a rabbi so he wasn't really home he used to come to our house we used to play games and then it became sexual I'm gonna give you a cookie because you do it so nicely it's all about the cookie it's all about lying and it's all about being so evil to a little child he also threatened me he would kill my parents he would choke me he would hold me he would kidnap me how did that affect you a lot yeah it affected my whole life my whole life is around this sexual abuse and rape emunah turned to therapy and art to help deal with the trauma this is in my bedroom and my inspiration she paints and writes poetry but she's still angry that it was allowed to happen in the first place what are your thoughts on him being able to come to Israel and flee the United States it brings up a lot of anger and a lot of frustration towards the Israeli system word Shona says the failure begins in the US why would someone want to help one of these pedophiles escape oftentimes there's some sort of community incentive either somebody owes them a favor or someone in the community let's say an institution has covered up for them in the past and they know that if this goes to court there's a lot of civil liability coming down the line you know and it's gonna cost a lot of money to a lot of people and they just nobody wants to deal with that Shana accuses the Israeli police of not prioritizing accused pedophiles on the run why do you have to be the ones that do this because nobody else's that's really I don't have any better answer than that and if you guys weren't doing it they nobody would do it Israeli police told CBS News that quote the police coordinate closely with the Ministry of Justice and worldwide police organizations in order to find suspects overseas today Carol Fay charges in Israel while back in the United States the District Attorney's Office in collectimus County and Oregon told CBS News they are working with federal authorities to secure his extradition but Mordechai um Tov remains at large the district attorney here in Los Angeles told us they have not requested young Tufts extradition and that they had no other comment Jewish community watch says that is the problem if American officials don't try to get accused pedophiles from Israel then they simply escape justice and leave children at risk the US Department of Justice declined to comment on specific cases but praised their relationship with Israel's law enforcement adding sex offenders have been successfully extradited in the past days after Cara's arrest a muna confronted him at an Israeli police station it was good it was good to confront him it was important for me to have that closure in my life the healing process will continue for a muna but for many like mehndi the lack of justice means the pain continues so there are two things jcw says could help close this pathway first better background checks on people moving to Israel and second more willingness from US authorities to pursue the accused so it certainly seems like law enforcement both here and in Israel are sort of busy patting themselves on the back on how well they cooperate with one another but Jewish community watch needs to be doing most of that grunt work that on the ground investigating why do they say the group what do they say more pedophiles aren't being apprehended so it's very complicated of when you leave the United States and go to Israel first they say that once these people are wanted that they need to go to Interpol and have that international arrest warrant put out for them so that the Israeli authorities can then start looking for extradition is expensive and a lot of these jurisdictions just don't have the money or manpower to really pursue them and then when you get to the Israeli side a jcw says that they need to be doing more background checks on these people sometimes a simple Google search will bring up especially if it's an Interpol rest warrant we'll bring that up and so that they can then note this person is dangerous they should not be let in or if there is an arrest warrant out form that they need to go and pick them up jgw says that there just isn't the priority to go and pick these people up that they that the police don't don't have the resources there to go and look for these people as well so it really does fall on jcw to track them from the United States to Israel that's unbelievable just jcw also sort of believe that aside from law enforcement there so the other elements of the community that need to work on this yeah and that's another big part of this is that a lot of the times these people have helped mm-hmm helped within the community people that help them flee to Israel sometimes as we saw with yom tov he he had helped according to jcw to flee the country through mexico and then get a passport and a fake passport there to immigrate to Israel so basically buret schemes but they are and and they need a lot of people to pull off and they say that there needs to be a conversation within the community about not protecting people and that's where it what's so important to have rabbi Oppenheimer you know come forward and talk about this and say you know this is something that is happening and we need to address this and you know and he said we you know the one important thing is if someone comes to you don't be so trusting you know look into their background especially if there's someone who wants to immigrate very quickly you know take some time to make sure this isn't a person who's trying to flee justice yeah he was a really good element to your story because sometimes you know it's it's not everyone's bad these are good people just trying to help out and they find themselves sort of caught up in a bad situation exact okay and it's really nice having you here to here thank you all right

Channel: CBS News

Views: 1,033,223

Keywords: video, live streaming, live video, cbsn, woman, tracking, suspects, sex abuse, scandal, catholic church

Id: unPXNF1kND8

Length: 11min 22sec (682 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 19 2020