Police arrest ex-judge along with prominent lawyer on suspicion of graft
In 2016 recording, Efi Nave, then Bar Association head, seems to endorse Eitan Orenstein en route to his appointment as Tel Aviv District Court president, in exchange for help in court
Police arrested two prominent legal figures on Tuesday on suspicion of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, about two months after incriminating recordings published by the media appeared to show the two conspiring in a quid pro quo arrangement.
The National Fraud Unit detained former Tel Aviv District Court president Eitan Orenstein and former Bar Association president Efraim (Efi) Nave for questioning, a police statement said, adding that the probe into the two was launched following the release of a media report on them.
Police said officers arrested the two men and searched their homes.
In March, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published secret recordings of conversations between the two men in 2016.
In the recordings, the two men seem to agree that Nave would support Orenstein, then serving as deputy president of the Tel Aviv District Court, to be the court’s next president, and in exchange Orenstein would ensure that a judge unfavorable to Nave would not preside over tort cases in which he is involved.
“You only have to make one commitment,” Nave can be heard telling Orenstein in one recording. “Keep her off of tort cases, I don’t care where [she goes].” Nave then emphasizes: “I’m not joking with you about that.”
A separate leaked recording from that period surfaced in April, in which Nave is heard pressing for Orenstein’s appointment in a conversation with then-justice minister Ayelet Shaked.
Nave and Orenstein have reportedly been confidants since sometime around 2012, and an excerpt from one of their conversations over text message was unsealed in 2020, in which Nave asked Orenstein to ensure that lawyers who specialize in tort law be “looked after.”
Nave has been in legal trouble before.
In 2018, he was indicted on charges of having helped his girlfriend, Bar Katz, evade passport control when entering the country, in an apparent attempt to conceal her travel from his wife, with whom he was going through divorce proceedings; Nave admitted to the charges, and both he and Katz were convicted in 2022.
In 2019, police arrested Nave on suspicion of a quid pro quo involving sexual favors in exchange for advancing judicial appointments. The lawyer resigned his position as president of the Bar Association shortly thereafter. The case was closed in 2021, despite the state prosecutor’s office asserting that there was evidence pointing toward guilt.
That case was opened following another leak of personal communications, this time from Nave’s ex-wife, who gave several of the lawyer’s old cellphones to journalist Hadas Shtaif.
Orenstein unexpectedly resigned in 2020, seven years before he would typically be expected to retire at the age of 70. The judge cited burnout, but commentators at the time speculated whether the move was influenced by his connection to Nave, which was understood to have hurt his chances of a Supreme Court appointment.
