The Latest Cases: Hayim Nissim Cohen; William and Zachary Zulock
Background: Adopte and Abuse
Child abuse and neglect are all too common. For one thing, most anyone over the age of 12 can make a baby and many find themselves with a child they didn’t plan and are ill-prepared, inadequate or unable to safely parent and children do not come with instructions. Parents may have more children than they intended to, or may suffer with addiction or other mental health issues. Some become financially strained, stressed, overwhelmed and frustrated. Mothers have committed murder-suicide while suffering postpartum depression. Some cannot control their temper or believe corporal punishment is the best way to teach right from wrong. A dire need to work and support their children has also led parents to leave children unattended rather than lose a day’s pay when a sitter doesn’t show up, and have been charged with neglect. All are very unfortunate and when serious, children may be taken from parents for their protection and placed in — ironically — high risk foster care, from where they may be adopted with the belief and hope that adopters are mature, well established, highly motivated, screened, vetted and scrutinized to eliminate those with mental illness, addictions, anger issues, or criminal background or tendencies.
Four-year-old Sklyer Wilson killed by his adoptive parentsAdopters, however, do not have children by accident or in unintended ways and we thus expect them not to have the problems that plague natural parents.
Society entrusts adopters with others’ children in need of safe care. Adoption is society’s safety net, the fallback position for children whose parents are inadequate. We trust that children in need are “better off” adopted than to remain with parents who are struggling.
They are supposed to “better than” the parents the child was born to. Society places trust in them to care for another’s child or children. For all these reasons it is all the more shocking and horrendous when they violate that trust and abuse a child in their care.
Unfortunately abuse of all kinds, including fatal physical abuse and neglect, is not absent in adoptive families or as uncommon as some might think. Adoptive parents have beaten, abandoned, rehomed, starved, caged, burned and found unthinkable ways to torture children entrusted to them.
However, just as society assumes that those who adopt are “better” than natural parents, those who adopt are often ill-prepared for the trauma that all adopted children experience, even when adopted as infants. Adopters may find children who have difficulty becoming attached to them. Many adopters claim that adoption agencies play-down or fail to honestly and fully disclose medical and emotional histories and they also claim a lack of support and help when problems arise. Agencies claim they hear what they want to hear. Lawsuits have arisen.
Statistics on Adoptive Abuse
The facts however are that children living with a non-related adult in the household are “at least 8 times more likely to be maltreated in one way or another. They are 10 times more likely to experience abuse and 8 times more likely to experience neglect.” Child Abuse and Father Figures: Which Kind of Families Are Safest to Grow Up In? National Center for Child Research
“Children residing in households with adults unrelated to them arere 8 times more likely to die of maltreatment than children in households with 2 biological parents. Risk of maltreatment death is also elevated for children residing with step, foster, or adoptive parents.” Household composition and risk of fatal child maltreatment.
Fatalities are either a result of a direct act of violence or they die from chronic neglect and abuse over time (Asmussen, 2010). Evidence suggests that younger children are more likely to be fatally assaulted by parents and/or other caregivers as opposed to teens who are most often killed by their peers or other adults (Asmussen, 2010). Yampolskaya, Greenbaum, and Berson (2009), in a study examining 126 profiles found that non-biological parents were 17 times more likely to commit a fatal assault toward a child than biological parents (Yampolskaya et al., 2009).
Physical abuse, neglect and abandonment of adopted kids often gets blamed on behavioral problems of the children. Adopters who have been charged with abuse often claim they had their child’s bedroom door locked from the outside to protect them from harming their other children. They claim self-harm such as a child being severely underweight and malnourished is a result of the child having an eating disorder, despite the child flourishing after being removed. And they claim lack of support.
Non-biological parents are more likely sexually abuse children in their care, in part because of absence of kinship taboo. Yet, there is no possible excuse or victim-blaming for sexual abuse.
In January, 2023 Jodi Ann and Joseph Wilson of NC were charged with murder after their 4-year-old adopted son, Skyler, died from abuse, including an exorcism and being denied food, according to authorities.Investigators allegedly found a cellphone photo of the boy “swaddled” in a sheet and duct-taped to the floor, according to an arrest affidavit, local media reported. The couple’s other children were placed with children services.
The Zulocks: Adoptive parents who sexually abused and trafficked their adopted sonsAlso in January 2023 Zachary and William Zulock of Georgia are accused of sexually abusing their two adopted sons, producing pornography of their abuse, and pimping or trafficking their two older sons, 9 and 11 to other pedophiles. The children were adopted from a Christian special-needs adoption agency when they were 3 and 4. William, a government worker, admitted to forcing one of his sons to perform oral sex on him “with the intent to satisfy his own … sexual desire,” according to a sworn affidavit cited by the Daily Wire.
Hayim Nissam Cohen charged with sexual assult of one or more of his nine adopted sonsThe following month, yet another case of sexual abuse by an adoptive parent was reported. Hayim Nissim Cohen, 38, of Houston Texas, was arrested for sexual assault after one of his nine adopted sons — age 17 — called Atlanta Twai’yah Paynes’ podcast and said that he and his brothers were being sexually assaulted by their adoptive father. Paynes called a friend who’s a police office. Together they kept the teen on the phone for 45 minutes and although he would not narrow down where in Texas he was, the concerned podcaster tracked him down and called Houston Police who arrested his father and took six children into custody.
Hayim Nissim Cohen, Most Recently Reported Adoptive Abuser
Hayim Nissim Cohen is far from shy and in fact seeks out social media attention because, he says, he wants to serve as a role model showing people “that you can be a single Hasidic Jew and adopt children.” He thus has had a YouTube channel since 2017, and he and two of his adopted sons have Facebook pages, he is on TikTok and has been written about in many Jewish and non-Jewish media outlets. Most notably, Cohen maintains a webpage entitled Our Unique Family, touting himself as a single father who has adopted nine children, aged 8 to 22, pictured in traditional Chassidic Jewish garb and payot or payes.
Unlike the very public Cohen, most Hasidic or Chassidic Jews are a sect of Orthodox Jews who tend to live in isolated communities. Not unlike Amish and Mennonites they avoid “outsiders” and police themselves, becoming petri dishes for sexual abuse that they don’t report to authorities. Chasidim do not encourage converts and, as is true of all Judaism, believe Judaism is passed down through maternal bloodlines. Whether Cohen is Chassidic or even Jewish remains to be determined. But it is likely he claimed to be to benefit from their protection of outside scrutiny.
Nine boys, some of whom are biological brothers, appear to have been adopted from foster care, and allegedly sexually abused by Hayim Nissim Cohen.
Jennifer and Sarah Hart who abused and murdered their six adopted childrenCohen’s adoptive parent self-aggrandizing is reminiscent of Jennifer and Sarah Hart who habitually displayed photos of their happy adoptive clan — all with smiling faces — despite allegations from neighbors and teachers that the children were abused and going hungry. They escape charges of abuse by removing their children from public school and by moving and moving again. Finally, they packed the family into the care and intentionally drove their car off a cliff killing themselves and all six of their adopted children.
Both of these headline-making cases involve large-scale adoptions, very public boasting via social and abuse. If you are wondering how such people pass adoptive parent vetting, I call your attention to Deidre and Jerry Matthews of Tulsa, OK. While keeping a lower profile than the Harts and Cohen — the Matthews are notable adoptive abusers because of having been named DHS Adoptive Parents of the Year in 2006. In 2014 nine children, living with the Matthews’ in a two bedroom trailer home were taken into state custody and the Matthews charged with physical and mental abuse, despite 17 previous reports to ODHS. The children were beaten to the point of bleeding, locked in dog cages, starved for days on end and lived in filth and animal feces.
Cohen has had a colorful life that draws parallels to the notorious lying congressman, George Santos, aka Anthony Devolder. Both of whom have hispanic sounding names and claim to be Jewish. Both like to be in the public spotlight. Both whom may be gay, and both who lie, scam and con.
Cohen was born Jeffrey Lujan Vejil of Odessa Texas and was charged in 2019 for molesting an exchange student from Spain
for which he faces criminal and civil charges and is due back in court on Feb. 23. Yet while that case is still pending, Cohen remained very public. Cohen, aka Vejil, represented himself as a Williamsburg native who moved to Texas in his 20s and had a brief stint in social work. He represented himself in the same way in an interview for the Adath Israel of San Francisco blog.
Other Cohen aliases include Luis Lujan and Gabriel Rosenburg
who claimed to be a rabbi trying to bring Jewish families from Russia to Jerusalem in order to raise donations. Rabbi was also claimed as Cohen’s profession on his application to host the foreign exchange student he’s been accused of molesting. In a 2019 interview, he claimed to be the son of rabbi who became a licensed foster parent “early in his 20s” and took in his first two children at 26.
According to the 17-year-old who reported the abuse told authorities that that the conman claims to be terminally ill and receiving hospice care, but only uses wheelchair and oxygen in public and for interviews but not at home alone.
The boys have claimed that he made them rub his feet, touch their genitals and touch his genitals. At least one of the children used the word rape to describe what was done to them. All were very afraid to report their abuse, seemingly having been threatened.
Nine boys adopted and allegedly sexually abused by Hayim Nissim Cohen
Jennifer and Sarah Hart and their six adopted teens all died in an intentional car crash.
These cases are just the ones that made headlines. How many children are suffering in silence, in fear of reporting the abuse they are suffering?