State indicts Ramat Gan mayor for alleged bribery

Indictment charges Zvi Bar with accepting $224,125 in bribes, fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice and breach of public trust.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Handcuffs arrest police crime illustrative 390 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
Handcuffs arrest police crime illustrative 390
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
The economic crimes division of the State Attorney’s Office filed an indictment on Thursday with the Tel Aviv District Court against Ramat Gan Mayor Zvi Bar.
The indictment charged him with accepting $224,125 in bribes, as well as with fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice and breach of public trust.
Three entrepreneurs who allegedly gave Bar bribes were also indicted for bribery, money-laundering and obstruction of justice.
The bribes were allegedly given nominally as loans in exchange for Bar’s help with the Beit Liror development project in Ramat Gan.
State Attorney Moshe Lador was personally involved in the decision to indict Bar, following a pre-indictment hearing in which the Ramat Gan mayor had a chance to sway Lador against the indictment.
Suspects sometimes do succeed in swaying the state in such pre-indictment hearings, such as when Yisrael Beytenu Party leader Avigdor Liberman convinced the state to drop a multimillion-dollar money-laundering case against him.
However, Bar was not as successful.