The Case of Lawyer Hillel Babayev: Holocaust Survivors, Elderly People and an Indictment Over 12 Million Shekels

What allegedly happened at the office

According to the announcement of the State Attorney's Office, Babayev was the owner of a law firm in Or Yehuda. Alongside him, it is alleged, people from the firm were active: lawyer Leah Melech, administrator Efi Tzafani and courier Yaakov Attias. Lawyer Alan Cohen, who was employed at the firm, was also charged in the first indictment. Each is charged according to his or her part.

The method described in the indictments repeats itself. A client arrives with a legal matter, usually a claim for money. At meetings in the office he meets people who are presented as representatives of insurance companies or as relevant officials. He hears optimistic estimates of the outcome, and is asked to pay. According to the prosecution, some of the payments were demanded as legal expenses that did not exist.

In the second indictment, the State Attorney's Office stated what makes the offences particularly serious:

"The large sums of money obtained by fraud from the complainants, over time and in a systematic manner, through a number of participants and on the basis of false representations, the advanced age of some of the complainants and the exploitation of the personal and medical condition of all the complainants, all of these constitute aggravating circumstances for the fraud offences".

The offences attributed to the defendants in the second indictment are obtaining something by fraud under aggravating circumstances and attempting to obtain something by fraud under aggravating circumstances.

From the television investigation to the arrest

According to statements by the defence lawyers published in 2020, the investigation was opened in November 2019 on the basis of a complaint. In early March 2020, an investigative report in the series "HaNokhlim" was broadcast on the main Channel 12 News bulletin. In it, clients told the camera that Babayev had put them off with excuses while their cases were not being handled. One of them said: "He mocked us, laughed in our faces".

Babayev was arrested on suspicion of fraud, forgery, money laundering and concealment of assets in bankruptcy proceedings. On 8 March 2020 his name was cleared for publication. According to the report at the time, 50 complaints against him had already accumulated at the fraud unit of the Tel Aviv District police, and further files were opened at various stations. Victims said that they had previously turned to the police and to the Israel Bar Association and had met with indifference.

At the same time, the district ethics committee of the Israel Bar Association filed a disciplinary complaint against him with the disciplinary tribunal. According to the complaint, as reported, a client paid sums for a court fee, a stay of exit order and a guarantee in a claim Babayev filed on his behalf, but in practice a fee of only 6,250 shekels was deposited. The complaint attributed to him a breach of the duty of loyalty to a client and harm to the dignity of the profession. The outcome of that complaint was not found. On the suspensions later imposed on him by the disciplinary tribunal, see Suspended from practice until 2036.

The defence lawyers argued at the time that the matter was civil in nature, because most of the complainants had filed debt claims in his bankruptcy proceedings. According to the report, after the investigation was broadcast, Babayev began to return some of the money.

The border crossing and the first indictment

On 16 May 2022 Babayev arrived at the Allenby Crossing. According to the reports, he presented a forged passport, a temporary passport that had been stolen and came into his possession, and the crossing staff became suspicious and prevented his departure. This happened before an indictment was filed against him, when he knew that an investigation was being conducted against him.

On 26 May 2022, the Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office filed an indictment with the Tel Aviv District Court against him and four others. According to the State Attorney's Office, it comprises 48 counts. According to the report from that day, it alleged that the defendants obtained about 6.4 million shekels by fraud in 43 instances, and attempted to obtain another 575,000 shekels.

The first indictment also dealt with Babayev's creditors. According to the report, as early as 2017 a receivership order was issued against him over debts of about 7.8 million shekels. The order required him to deposit all receipts in a supervised account and prohibited him from incurring new debts. According to the indictment, he concealed from his creditors income of at least 20,775,136 shekels, deposited about 9.8 million shekels in other people's accounts and discounted client cheques amounting to about 10.9 million shekels.

Babayev was detained until the end of the proceedings. The Supreme Court extended his detention from time to time, as the law requires when a trial lasts a long time. One of the public decisions is Criminal Miscellaneous Application 3901/24 of 13 May 2024, in which the detention was extended by consent until further decision.

The other lawyers at the firm

Babayev was not the only lawyer in the case. According to the reports on the first indictment, two lawyers who worked at his firm were also charged in it.

Lawyer Alan Cohen was employed at the firm. According to the report on the Ice website, he was charged with obtaining something by fraud, aiding the defrauding of creditors and money laundering offences. No publication was found on the further course of the proceedings in his case, on a verdict or on a suspension. He enjoys the presumption of innocence.

Lawyer Leah Melech is named in the 2024 announcement of the State Attorney's Office as someone who at times acted together with Babayev. According to the report on the Ice website, the lawyer from the firm who was charged in the first indictment was accused of fraud, attempted fraud, aiding the defrauding of creditors, money laundering and tax offences. According to Posta, she left the country after the investigation, and she is not charged in the second indictment. A "HaNokhlim" investigation from July 2022 reported that lawyer Leah Melech was temporarily suspended by the Israel Bar Association in June 2022, that she left for a country that has no extradition agreement with Israel, and that the indictment against her was struck out because she left before it was filed and it can be renewed if she is located. The investigation deals with a firm she ran with a partner and does not mention Babayev, so it has not been verified that this is the same proceeding. She enjoys the presumption of innocence.

The two other defendants are not lawyers: Efi Tzafani, the administrator, and Yaakov Attias, the courier. Both are charged in both indictments. In the second indictment, Attias is charged with one count of obtaining something by fraud.

The second indictment

In July 2024, the Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office filed a further indictment against Babayev and two employees of his firm, Efi Tzafani and Yaakov Attias. It comprises 35 further counts. The announcement of the State Attorney's Office was published on 18 July 2024.

It is important to read the figures correctly. The 12 million shekels are an estimate by the State Attorney's Office of the amount alleged in the two indictments, and not an amount determined by a court. The amount that was attempted is not money actually collected.

A trial with two hundred witnesses

The trial is being conducted at the Tel Aviv District Court before Judge Tali Haimovich. According to a report in Globes from October 2024, the witness hearing stage opened only in February 2024, almost two years after the first indictment was filed, following changes of defence counsel and postponements. There are about 200 witnesses in the case.

At that time the court heard the case one day a week, between 9:30 and 13:00. The State Attorney's Office asked to expand the hearings, and the judge agreed to a full day of hearings every week starting in January 2025, owing to the load of other cases with detained defendants.

According to the same report, about half of the complainants are over 60, and ten of them are over 70. Because of their age and medical condition, four of them were heard in "early testimony", so that their testimony would be preserved even if they could not testify later. Defence counsel stated that Babayev denies the charges and that the investigation was flawed.

This is the full picture of the case: elderly and sick people waiting years for a ruling in a case in which they are the complainants, and a defendant who, according to the reports, was detained until the end of the proceedings back in 2022, with no verdict found.

Suspended from practice until 2036

The criminal trial and the disciplinary track are separate proceedings. According to the list of suspended lawyers published by the Israel Bar Association, as checked on 21 October 2026, the Bar's Tel Aviv district disciplinary tribunal imposed three suspensions on Hillel Babayev, licence number 53245, in three separate cases:

The suspensions run one after another. According to the list, Babayev is suspended from 13 July 2026 until 12 January 2036, and during that period he may not perform any act reserved for lawyers under the Israel Bar Association Law. The notice on the first suspension states that it runs "from the end of a previous suspension". The details of that previous suspension do not appear on the list.

These are disciplinary sanctions imposed by the Bar's tribunal, not a decision in the criminal case. The notices do not set out the conduct on which the sanctions were based, and it is not known whether the disciplinary complaint reported in 2020 is one of these cases. No verdict was found in the criminal trial, and Babayev enjoys the presumption of innocence.

A complaint against a lawyer: what to do

This case begins where many cases begin: a client who trusts his lawyer and pays without checking. A few simple steps can help before paying, and afterwards:

1. Checking a lawyer's licence. Before handing over a case, search for the lawyer in the lawyer search on the Israel Bar Association website (in Hebrew) and on the suspended lawyers (in Hebrew) page, and cross-check by licence number.
2. A written fee agreement. Ask for an agreement stating how much you pay, for what and when. Every additional payment requires a written explanation.
3. Proof of every expense. A court fee, a guarantee or an expert opinion are expenses that have a document. Ask for the receipt or the confirmation from the court, and do not settle for a notice about "legal expenses".
4. Who is facing you. If an "insurance company representative" is introduced at a meeting, ask for his name and contact the insurance company directly to make sure he actually works there.
5. Checking the proceeding itself. If you are told that a claim has been filed, ask for the case number. You can check in the Net HaMishpat system that the case exists and what its status is.
6. Filing a complaint. A complaint about professional conduct is filed with the ethics committee of the Israel Bar Association district in which the lawyer practises. When there is a suspicion of an offence, such as fraud, a complaint is also filed with the police. Attach agreements, receipts, correspondence and case details.

Not every delay in a case is fraud, and not every disappointed client is right. But documents made at the time are what make it possible later to check what really happened.

Timeline

What is still unknown

The original indictments were not obtained, and the details about them rely on the announcement of the State Attorney's Office and on media reports. The total number of clients, the exact periods of the offences, the extent of money returned, the outcome of the 2020 disciplinary complaint and the current detention status have not been verified. The suspension details rest on the Bar's notices in its list of suspended lawyers, not on the disciplinary judgments themselves, which were not obtained.

No verified verdict in the case was found. This is not proof that none was given. The current status of the other defendants in the proceedings has not been verified. The article does not publish names or details of complainants.