How Jewish American pedophiles hide from justice in Israel
Tel Aviv — It's a tense stakeout, waiting for Jimmy Julius
Karow to appear. He is a wanted man and is considered dangerous. Accused of
sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl in Oregon in 2000, he fled to Israel
before authorities in the U.S. could apprehend him or figure out where he went.
Karow has been running from U.S. law enforcement ever since. Currently
INTERPOL, an inter-governmental policing organization that works with 194
countries, has a Red Notice to alert police worldwide that he's a fugitive.
Two years after he fled the U.S., Karow was convicted by an
Israeli court of child molestation in a separate case. He served time and was
released. Now another alleged Israeli victim has come forward, saying he began
abusing her when she was 5-years-old, and continued for years.
Karow has successfully evaded authorities by moving between
communities in Israel for almost two decades, and he is not alone.
A widespread problem
A CBS News investigation has found that many accused
American pedophiles flee to Israel, and bringing them to justice can be
difficult.
Jewish Community Watch (JCW), an American organization that
tracks accused pedophiles, has been trying for years to find Karow and help
bring him to justice.
JCW says Karow and other wanted men and women have been able
to exploit a right known as the Law of Return, whereby any Jewish person can
move to Israel and automatically gain citizenship.
Since the small organization started tracking accused
pedophiles in 2014, it says more than 60 have fled from the U.S. to Israel.
Given its limited resources to identify these individuals, JCW says the actual
number is likely much larger.
"The same thing that is going on in the Catholic Church
right now around the world, the exact same thing is happening in our
community," JCW's founder Meyer Seewald told CBS News. "The cover-ups
are the same, the stigma, the shame."
Seewald says tightly-knit Jewish communities across the U.S.
will sometimes meet accusations against a member with incredulity, and that can
have a chilling effect.
"Everyone goes and surrounds this individual and
supports him because they can't believe a person can do such a crime. They take
the abuser's side and the abuse continues," Seewald says. "They put
him in another community. A few years later, he's done the same thing and we
hear more allegations that the person is abusing children. Victims don't want
to come forward when they see that."
JCW says the majority of its cases originate from modern
Orthodox to Ultra-orthodox Jewish enclaves in the U.S., but that it happens
across the wider Jewish community. Because perpetrators can't be held
accountable unless victims come forward, many cases are believed to go
unreported. To try to get them out into the light, JCW holds awareness events
across the U.S., and offers victims of sexual abuse advice and emotional
support.
Mendy Hauck decided to come forward after receiving support
from JCW. The father of two says he was just 8-years-old when he was molested
by a teacher at his Orthodox Jewish School in Los Angeles. Hauck says the abuse
started one day when a friend brought in cookies for his birthday.
"I actually went ahead and reached for the biggest
cookie and he said, 'Put it back and you could come back by recess and get your
cookie,'" Hauck said. "So after he handed out the rest of the cookies
to the other classmates, I had to stay behind if I wanted my cookie, and I did.
He called me up to his desk... and that's when he started... rubbing me."
His alleged abuser is Mordechai Yomtov, a then-35-year-old
Hebrew teacher.
"I jumped backwards like a step or two and he grabbed
my hair and said, 'it's fine, you can come close. I won't hurt you. There is
nothing wrong,' and he did it again," Hauck recalls.
Hauck says the abuse continued over the course of the year.
He says he felt trapped, with nowhere to turn.
When the year finished, Hauck moved on to the next grade.
That's when Yomtov's crimes caught up to him. In 2001, police arrested and
charged him with committing lewd acts with three of his other students, ranging
in age from 8 to 10. But Hauck never told anyone about his ordeal until years
later.
Yomtov eventually pled guilty, served time in jail and was
released on probation. But once free, he violated his probation by fleeing to
Israel via Mexico.
JCW tracked him down and confronted him in Jerusalem with a
hidden camera. Yomtov admitted that he violated his probation and illegally
fled the United States, with help. He also said that in Mexico he obtained a
fake passport in order to travel to Israel, where he lives illegally.
Yomtov denied abusing Hauck, but offered a general apology
to his victims, saying: "I'm very, very sorry. I hope that God will help
every single person who went through this. Please forgive me."
It wasn't until 2016, when another alleged victim of Yomtov
and friend of Hauck's came forward, that Hauck felt compelled to tell his
story. He filed a police report hoping to get justice, but says the processes
has been slow. For him, justice is twofold.
"I want the (LA County District Attorney) to step up
their game — you know, actually fight to get him back here and give him what he
deserves," he says. "And also, I want the communities to make sure
this doesn't happen again."
The district attorney's office told CBS News there has been
no request to extradite Yomtov back to the United States, and declined any
further comment.
Red flags, more victims
Help from the community is a reoccurring theme. Rabbi Yehuda
Oppenheimer knows first-hand how a pedophile is able to flee to Israel. In
2000, he unwittingly helped Karow escape.
The two met when Karow expressed interest in converting to
Judaism. One day, Karow suddenly said he wanted to move to Israel.
When asked whether there was nothing at all that raised red
flags up to the point when Karow said he wanted to move to Israel, Rabbi
Oppenheimer responded: "I wish I could say that [it didn't raise any red
flags], but unfortunately, I can't… He [Karow] said, 'I plan to go to Israel, I
need to go much more quickly than I thought I needed to go."
"He said that there was something in the past that
happened when he was young but nothing had ever happened since. I felt that I
could trust him. So I wrote him a letter, he bought a ticket and he left."
Oppenheimer gave Karow the contact information of family and
friends in Israel to help him settle. Then one day a close friend called the
rabbi.
"I'll never know exactly what happened but something
severely sexual… something happened with their daughter, and [Karow] was
arrested." Oppenheimer says it felt like "a punch to the gut. It was
very painful."
He says he carries that guilt to this day, and that's why he
came forward with his story. He has a message for other rabbis and community leaders:
"When somebody has offended in this way, the odds are
that they will do so again, no matter how kind and pious and wise and nice and
charismatic they are," Oppenheimer says. "You simply can't trust
them. You have to take steps to prevent, you cannot have them around
youngsters, you cannot have them in your home."
One of the girls Karow allegedly abused in Israel is
"Amoona." She asked us not to use her real name, to protect her
family.
"I was 5, 4 or 5 years old. My mother was on bedrest.
My father is a rabbi so he wasn't home. (Karow) used to come to our house. We
used to play games and then it became sexual."
The alleged abuse took place over the course of more than
two years. A July 2019, Israeli
indictment against him details allegations of severe sexual abuse, including
rape and sodomy. She says he would
threaten and manipulate her to keep her quiet.
"'I'm going to 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," Amoona recalls him telling her. "He
also threatened and to kill my parents. He would choke me. He would hold
me."
Inaction, even protection?
Amoona is angry that Karow was allowed to enter Israel in
the first place, but JCW's chief operating officer Shana Aaronson says the
failure begins in the United States. She says there are elements of the Jewish
community in the U.S. that are willing to help 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," she
says.
While Aaronson puts blame on Jewish communities in the U.S.
and the U.S. government for not aggressively pursuing extraditions, she says
Israeli authorities have also failed to prioritize the hunt for suspects.
She tells CBS News it would be easier for the police to
locate and arrest Karow, for instance, but it has fallen instead on the JCW to
track him down.
Israel is known as a nation on the cutting edge of
technology, but Shana says that doesn't trickle down to local law enforcement.
Shana says police don't request background checks of perpetrators arrested in
Israel who have recently moved there from other countries. They don't even do a
Google search, she says.
"The general standards and protocols for investigations
by local police are poor," she says.
JCW says the problem reaches into the upper echelons of
Israeli politics as well. They note that Yaakov Litzman, leader of an
ultra-orthodox alliance in Israel's legislature and the current minister of
health, has been accused of preventing the deportation of a Malka Leifer, a
former head teacher at a Jewish school in Australia, where she is wanted on
multiple charges of child sexual abuse.
CBS News obtained an Israeli police recommendation that says
there is enough evidence against Litzman to recommend he be charged himself
with fraud and breach of trust for protecting Leifer. Litzman's office told CBS
News there was not any wrongdoing. It's now up to Israel's attorney general to
decide whether to indict the lawmaker.
"It's a good example of the lengths the community will
go," JCW's Aaronson says. "It's really disappointing and
disgusting."
Israeli police wouldn't comment on specific cases but insist
they take the cases seriously, and that they coordinate "closely with the
Ministry of Justice and worldwide police organizations in order to find
suspects overseas."
The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment on
specific cases too but praised their relationship with Israel's law
enforcement, adding sex offenders have been successfully extradited in the
past.
The stakeout
On the day of the stakeout, JCW received its best tip in
months — that Karow was going to be at a clinic in Tel Aviv. They know he is
6'2" and over 200 pounds, but he could have changed his appearance, and
previous attempts to capture him have failed.
"Obviously the fear is that he'll figure out that
someone is looking for him and he'll bolt," Aaronson says, clutching an
old photo of JCW's target.
An ambulance pulls up and a man steps out with a bandaged
right arm. He fits the description of Karow. Aaronson's team confirms his
identity and calls the police.
Within five minutes a police officer on a motorcycle arrives
and they move in to make the arrest.
Karow is brought out by two officers. He doesn't look
surprised to be in custody. We ask him if he assaulted a girl in the United
States.
"No," he replies. He denies fleeing to Israel but
doesn't answer when asked if he assaulted girls in that country. He says he
knows he's wanted under an international arrest warrant.
Karow now faces charges in both Israel and the U.S.
The District Attorney's office in Clackamas County, Oregon,
told CBS News it was "working with federal authorities to secure his
extradition."
Outside the clinic, Aaronson calls Amoona to share the news
of Karow's capture. In Israel, victims are allowed to confront alleged
offenders before trial. Amoona brought a box of the same cookies Karow used to
manipulate her, to throw back at him.
"It was good to confront him," she says. "To
have that closure in my life."
Meanwhile, Mordechai Yomtov remains at large.
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