.השופט שמאי בקר חשוד בביצוע עבירות מין בבתו. צא”פ הוטל על זהותו
For the past year, the Israeli police have been investigating charges against Israeli magistrate judge, Shamai Becker. He is accused of–depending on which source you consult–raping or fondling the breasts of his 14 year-old daughter. The investigation has been conducted in secret. During much of this period, Becker conducted trials and made legal rulings, many of which involved the police themselves. It’s easy to see that the judge was in effect held hostage by the police. If he wished to retain his judgeship he could not afford to alienate the very party investigating him. This is certainly justice compromised. Any defendant convicted of a crime involving police testimony now has an opening to challenge his guilty verdict.
In the past few days, Ynet reported that Becker had “gone on vacation” according to his staff. He simply disappeared. No one knew where he was or when he was returning. Since the case has been under gag order, the media could not report his name. But News1 and blogger, Lorry Shem Tov violated the gag order and did so. Later News1 removed Becker’s name from its report. Shem Tov’s blog post remains uncensored.
The police intend to close the case against Becker from lack of evidence (as opposed to lack of guilt). This determination, according to an Israeli attorney I consulted, will likely prevent him from returning to the bench.
As an interesting piece of trivia, the judge who approved the gag order in Becker’s case is a blast from the past for long-time readers of this blog: Einat Ron, a former military prosecutor and the judge who cooperated in silencing Anat Kamm by approving the gag order in her case. Judge Ron appears to be the police and Shabak’s go-to judge when they need a favor. By the way, she’s been promoted since the Kamm case. She’s now presiding judge of the Central District Magistrate’s Court.
There does seem to be a propensity toward child abuse among Israeli judges and diplomats. I reported that Senior Judge Rafi Aranya had beaten his children and that the case had been closed by investigators out of “respect” for the dignity and privacy of his children (ahem!). A few months ago, Israel’s consul general in Miami, Chaim Shaham, was accused of causing lacerations to his daughter’s arm when he grabbed her in the shower. This investigation too appears to have been dropped. Does anyone get the impression there is a culture of impunity amongst Israel’s senior civil servants?
I first learned about this story from a reader e mail. I often get good stories sent to me in this fashion. But I’ve never had anything quite like this happen. Here’s the e mail:
Hey faggot (thought it’s a secret? it’s not)
Tell us the secret details of this:
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4804050,00.html
in the mean time, fuck off fudgepacker
Time: May 17, 2016 at 1:31 AM
IP Address: 31.210.187.100
The sheer chutzpah of an Israeli homophobe who wants to both smear me and at the same time uncover the latest Israeli news scoop is mind-blowing. But I figured, he may be an foul-mouthed idiot, but he may also be on to a good story.
“…the police intend to close the case against Becker from lack of evidence (as opposed to lack of guilt). This determination, according to an Israeli attorney I consulted, will likely prevent him from returning to the bench. ”
So what’s the problem here? Becker has ‘disappeared’, i.e., he’s not sitting on the bench, and he will not likely return to the bench even though he’s not been charged, much less convicted, of sexual abuse.
The judge is gone, and his daughter has been spared having to testify.
Sounds like a good outcome. What did I miss?
@ Abby: What did you miss? Assuming you can read, you missed the fact that a year’s worth of Becker’s cases have been compromised and the convictions may have to be thrown out because both he & the police colluded in keeping the investigation a secret. That’s not a good outcome.
Wait a minute. You said that for the past year, police have been investigating Becker, but the gag order isn’t even one month old. It seems that Becker disappeared at the same time as the gag order was issued.
So how do we know that any cases have been compromised? And why would the police collude with Becker, for any length of time at all, if they knew that their convictions would be at risk?
You make it sound like there is no Prosecutor’s Office here, that it’s just the police and Judge Becker.
@ Abby: OK, let’s explain it for the bear of little brain: you’re the police. You begin an investigation of a judge for sex abuse. You’re doing it in secret. But he knows you’re investigating him. You interrogate him as part of the investigation. The investigation goes on for a year. During that time, the judge doesn’t recuse himself from any cases involving the police. So he makes rulings & determines guilt in cases involving the police knowing that everything he does could influence his own investigation. If he finds a defendant innocent, he knows the police can cause him personal harm in his own case. Why wouldn’t he rule in favor of the police every time?
Why can’t you understand how problematic this is.
As for why police would do this knowing their cases could be compromised–this doesn’t pass the laugh or smell test. Why would the police take advantage of a judge to gain an edge in criminal proceedings? Really?
This is tiring me. Stop posting in this thread. If you wish, you may move on to other threads. Just not this one.
” So he makes rulings & determines guilt in cases involving the police knowing that everything he does could influence his own investigation. If he finds a defendant innocent, he knows the police can cause him personal harm in his own case.”
So…do you know how many times he pronounced guilty vs. innocent? Do you know how many criminal cases has he presided over during this year? Let’s try to put some numbers together and see what comes up? I believe all that info is public.
In all states in the US, all child abuse investigations by police or by children protective services, are confidential, not public, or “secretive” as you would call it. It’s actually the law of the land, federal and state law across the board, and it is so, in order to protect the privacy of children. The presumption of innocence is also the law of the land., which simply means someone is presumed innocent until proven guilty. The judge , not charged, not tried is innocent. What’s most unfortunate is that some zealous irresponsible blogger two continents away decided to make public a tragic, sad story of child abuse, and irresponsibly further victimize a poor child who must have suffered tremendously regardless of the truth of that abuse allegations, all in order to score political points in a poor attempt deligitimize the State of Israel.
@ Gaby:
A rule of this blog is that if you make claims, you support them with credible evidence. You haven’t done that. In fact, your claim is flat out wrong as proven by the news this week that an Orthodox rabbi at Kiryas Joel stands accused of sexually abusing young boys in his care. The rabbi’s name was published though his victims have not. This is standard procedure in the American system. VICTIMS are protected, but the accused are not necessarily.
You appear not to have noticed that I’ve noted that the charges against Judge Becker are just that, charges. They are allegations. I have nowhere said that he is guilty.
That is one of the stupider claims anyone has made here. I didn’t force Becker to do the acts he’s accused of. He did. I’m reporting them. Killing the messenger would be typical head-in-the-sand Israeli approach to bad news. Why don’t you focus on reforming what’s wrong with Israel, rather than trying to debase those of us who point out what’s wrong.
Apples and oranges. Rabbis of Kirias Joel abusing boys has nothing to do with the case you reported, of a father accused of molesting his own child. All such cases of a parent accused of molesting or abusing his/her child are dealt in family, juvenile, children or dependency courts with children’s protective services conducting the investigation along with police units specialized to handle domestic issues. Reasons are obvious, the child lives in the home, do they need to remove the child?,, are there other children at risk?, remove the father? Monitored visits? Therapy? Foster home ? etc etc, all family issues.need to be addressed immediately while case is pending. What is absolutely common in all such courts, proceedings, hearings court files, and investigations is that they are always confidential, not open to the public, or “secretive” as you called it in your layman’s terms. If you don’t believe me go to the family, juvenile, children’s court close to your house and see if you can get into any such hearings, or get copies of any files dealing with these issues. Again, you know nothing on the subject, and again you owe me an apology.
@ Gaby: You are dead wrong. This Google search turned up thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of stories in which the names of family sexual abusers are identified publicly in the media: https://www.google.com/search?q=father+accused+of+sexually+abusing+daughters&tbm=nws&oq=father+accused+of+sexually+abusing+daughters&gs_l=mobile-heirloom-serp.12…6885.7618.0.9177.2.2.0.0.0.0.83.154.2.2.0….0…1c.1.34.mobile-heirloom-serp..2.0.0.xrh00CqB6lw
You are done in this thread. Do not comment further here.
“For the past year, the Israeli police have been investigating charges against Israeli magistrate judge, Shamai Becker. He is accused of–depending on which source you consult–raping or fondling the breasts of his 14 year-old daughter.”
Pls consider the correct use of the term “paedophile” …
“Paedophilia is a sexual preference for sexual activity with
prepubescent children, typically under the age of 11.
[Written by Justice DiTomaso of the Superior Court of Justice in R. v Byers]
I’ll add my voice in support of your article that fundamentalism in religion adds to the woes of women and girls from abuse by authoritarian and paternalistic elders. A true problem across the globe.