Former top police officer gets community service for failing to report bribe
Menashe Arviv also receives 4-month suspended sentence for hiding his close ties to a prominent rabbi convicted of bribery
A former top corruption investigator in the Israel Police was sentenced to 200 hours of community service on Wednesday over his conviction for failing to report a bribe offered to him by a prominent rabbi.
In addition to community service, Maj. Gen. Menashe Arviv also received a suspended sentence of four months from the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court.
“Such a senior police officer in his position is held to completely different norms of conduct and [to] full disclosure at all times, certainly on this matter,” Judge Einat Ron said.
Arviv, a former police deputy commissioner who once headed the national police force’s top corruption and fraud investigative body, Lahav 433, was convicted in February of the relatively minor crime of “failure to carry out an official duty.”
The conviction was part of a plea bargain that saw fraud and breach of trust charges excised from the indictment.
Arviv failed to report close ties he maintained with Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto and at least two bribery attempts by Pinto while Arviv serving in a variety of senior positions in the police, including as deputy head of the Tel Aviv police, as Israel Police liaison to the United States and as head of Lahav 433.
Pinto himself served a year in prison after he was convicted of trying to bribe another top police corruption investigator, the former head of the National Unit for Fraud Investigations, assistant commissioner Ephraim Bracha. Bracha committed suicide after the case became public.
The investigation into Arviv began after Pinto confessed during questioning in the Bracha case to also attempting to bribe Arviv, whom he had known since 2010.
Pinto’s information and his agreement to serve as a state’s witness in Arviv’s trial led to the reduction of his sentence to a single year.
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