Bat Yam mayor to be indicted on corruption charges
Shlomo Lahiani vows to fight accusations of bribery, fraud, breach of trust and failure to declare millions in income
The mayor of Bat Yam, Shlomo Lahiani, first arrested in 2009, will be indicted on charges of accepting bribes, fraud, breach of trust and failure to disclose millions in income, the Tel Aviv District Attorney’s office announced.
Lahiani is to be charged with five separate counts, but the hearing will likely take place only after the next city elections in Bat Yam, scheduled for October, Haaretz reported on Tuesday.
Among other crimes, the mayor of the seaside town south of Tel Aviv is accused of failing to declare and pay taxes on NIS 8 million (around $2,200,000) in income and of accepting bribes of some NIS 900,000 (around $250,000).
Lahiani is also accused of running a ring of city employees who used their status to take out bank loans that they passed on to Lahiani personally, and of a conflict of interest in an affair where the city would take out advertisements in a local paper of which he was a part owner.
Lahiani, a popular mayor, has denied the charges, and has personally asked for a hearing in order to clear his name.
“By the end of the hearing, it will be clear that Shlomi Lahiani acted innocently regarding all the issues raised in the prosecution’s letter, and that the conclusions reached by the prosecution are incorrect,” Lahiani’s defense attorney Kenneth Mann said in a statement.