A TikTok famous “rabbi” dad who adopted nine boys has been charged with sexually abusing most of them.
Single father Hayim Nissim Cohen, 38, gained 200,000 followers on the social media platform where he blogged about his “unique family” in Houston.
His perceived altruism also led to numerous glowing newspaper and magazine articles.
But the latest accusations have come whilst he is out on bond for a previous child sex case, as reported by the Houston Chronicle.
Cohen, who claims to be a disciple from Brooklyn of the Hasidic Judaism religious movement despite being born Jeffrey Lujan Vejil from Texas, found himself being investigated by the police after one of his sons reported anonymously on a podcast last month that he had been raped and abused.
The 17-year-old alleged that he had been sexually assaulted since the age of 11 – just weeks after his adoption – and added that many of his brothers had been abused too.
He also claimed that Child Protective Services had been called out eight times but failed to put a stop to the abuse.
Five of the other sons – aged nine, 10, 14, 15 and 16 – have been taken into care along with the 17-year-old after also coming forward, with Cohen now facing 12 charges.
Prosecutors added that he would keep the kids locked up in a room until 4pm and, sometimes force them to perform sex acts.
One of the alleged victims also claimed that Cohen used pepper spray on the boys.
Disturbingly, he was still facing a criminal charge for “indecency with a child” involving a foreign exchange student from Spain in 2019 at the time.
His bond conditions did not prevent him from raising his adopted kids, though.
They just forbid him from going within 1,000 feet of places where children were likely to be, such as schools.
Sherry Chandler, an attorney for the exchange student, told news outlet ABC13: “There were so many red flags. We all suspected [Cohen] is a paedophile and the other kids were getting abused.”
At the height of his social-media acclaim, Cohen expressed how his life’s mission was “to ensure that Jewish foster children are placed in Jewish homes”.
He also once told the Jewish Press: “Altruistic as non-Jewish foster parents may be, their homes and practices are alien to Orthodox kids. I became a go-to adoption destination for Orthodox boys in the foster care system.”
Cohen is now claiming to be terminally ill and sat in a wheelchair with an oxygen mask at his last court hearing.
But the teenager who alleged the abuse on the podcast claims the wheelchair is only used “when people come over or when he is in public” and that the six oxygen tanks he keeps are merely props.
Cohen’s attorney, Charles Johnson, has stated that his client was “going to do everything that we can to show that he did not do this”.