Boaz Yona hires crisis specialists - Haaretz

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Sat., January 26, 2008 Shvat 19, 5768

Israel Time: 01:41 (EST+7)

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Boaz Yona hires crisis specialists

By Hila Raz

Tags: Boaz Yona, Heftsiba

Boaz Yona may be sitting in an Italian prison as his extradition process to Israel crawls along, but the family of the disgraced Heftsiba CEO has meanwhile hired a crisis-management public relations firm. Specifically, they hired Rimon-Cohen-Shenkman to prepare for the media battle the Yonas plan to wage in parallel with their war in court.

Yona is expected to return home soon from Venice to face the music, or the court at least, after the Heftsiba construction company suddenly collapsed, leaving hundreds of home-buyers without their money or their apartments. Worse, investigators accuse Yona of siphoning tens of millions of shekels from Heftsiba while running the company, and fleeing when the company imploded.

He had asked to be tried in Italy, whence he fled, on the grounds that he would be hounded in Israel. But the Venice court was unsympathetic and ruled that he could be extradited.

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Both Boaz Yona and his wife Tamar have officially been declared bankrupt. Tamar Yona has sued Bank Leumi for repossessing her assets, including a Porsche car, arguing that she had not been properly advised when asked to sign unlimited guarantees on her husband's behalf. She says Leumi should simply make the guarantees she signed go away.

"We met with the family, but haven't sat down formally with the lawyers and do not yet have a consolidated media strategy," said Tammy Shenkman, co-manager of Rimon-Cohen-Shenkman. "It is too soon to know how to Yona's family will be handled." However, it can be said that the office means to present the whole picture, and nothing but the whole picture, which reportedly includes things the public doesn't yet know.

Among Rimon-Cohen's prior clients are Rabbi Israel Lau, Rabbi Yona Metzger (who was accused of sexual harassment and corruption), and Ehud Olmert, back in 1996, regarding a financing scandal in the Likud primaries. Yet another name client was Omri Sharon, son of Ariel Sharon, who was convicted for concealing illegal donations to his father's political campaigns.

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