‘House of horrors’ rabbi takes cushy deal after pleading guilty to enslaving 30 women: reports
A Jerusalem rabbi accused of enslaving 30 women in a cult-like home dubbed the “house of horrors” has pleaded guilty to lesser charges in return for a lax sentence of community service and cash compensation to his victims, according to reports.
Aharon Ramati had been charged with enslavement, minor assault and obstruction of justice among other charges, but reached a plea agreement for “holding people in conditions akin to slavery,” according to YNetNews.
The deal came with a cushy sentence of just nine months of community service and $34,000 in damages owed to his victims — and was reached after 11 of the women declined to testify against Ramati because they were too traumatized to face him.
The case grabbed headlines in Israel after Ramati’s 2020 arrest, with police labeling the rabbi a “cult leader” who used violence, intimidation and tales of eternal damnation to indoctrinate and control his victims.
“They had to ask him for permission for everything and consult him over every simple action,” police told the Times of Israel after his arrest.
Ramati began gathering women around him in 2008 by presenting himself as an enlightened religious leader who knew the “true path” to salvation, YNet reported.
He invited the women to live in his home, which he’d renamed the “Be’er Miriam Seminary,” where they lived on moldering mattresses spread throughout three bedrooms, had no hot water and faced constant leaks and decrepit conditions.
Ramati moved to a neighboring home as the ranks of his followers grew. At some points, more than 30 women were living within the cramped confines of the house, with some reports saying as many as 50 women along with children lived there, according to prosecutors.
The rabbi charged the women about $220 per month for a bed in the house, or about $170 per month to share a mattress with another resident, according to YNet.
While at the house, the women attended daily lessons where Ramati plied them with his teachings — which included renouncing all personal desires to focus their energies toward spirituality.
Ramati filled the void of personal responsibility for them, prosecutors argued, making all decisions for them and in turn taking large portions of their pay from jobs they worked outside of classes.
To control the women, prosecutors said Ramati frightened them by telling them they would face horrific harm at the hands of other-worldly forces if they disobeyed him, isolated them from their families and turned the women against one another to police each other.
One common punishment in the house was forcing the women to burn their fingers in fire to “simulate hell,” the Times of Israel reported, or making them eat hot peppers.
Rumors about Ramati’s conduct have surrounded him for years.
He was first arrested in 2015 but was released after several members of his group testified on his behalf.
