Adoptive dad of 9 charged with sexually abusing his son is being sued by another alleged victim

HOUSTON — A Houston man who’s accused of sexually abusing the nine sons he adopted is also being sued by a foreign exchange student who lived with the family.

Hayim Nissim Cohen, 38, was charged with continual sexual abuse of a child and two counts of sexual assault of a child under 17. He’s also accused of repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting other adoptive sons, according to court documents.

A foreign exchange student from Spain said Cohen also abused him in 2019.  

“He was so excited and then it turned into a nightmare,” attorney Sherry Chandler said. “The grooming started the fall semester with some improper behavior and resulted in sexual assault in the spring.”

The student told his principal what happened and was removed from the home. 

Cohen was charged with indecency with a child but released on a $75,000 bond. 

The foreign exchange student later sued Cohen and the company that placed him in the Houston home.

Chandler said there were several red flags when Cohen applied to the foreign exchange program with Educational Resource Development Trust or ERDT.

She said they failed to do a proper background check on him. 

“How can you do a background check and not even confirm the person is who they say they are?” Chandler asked.

Cohen claimed he was a rabbi for a foundation but Chandler said that was a lie and he didn’t have a job. 

She also said Cohen isn’t his real name and he’s changed it at least twice and used other aliases. 

According to the lawsuit, Cohen faked his background check and gave his children’s names as references with his own phone number. 

“If they contacted these individuals, those phone numbers registered to Cohen,” Chandler said.

We reached out to the attorneys representing EDRT who denied the allegations.

“ERDT considers the safety of our students as our top priority. While we cannot speak about a pending case, we can say we are deeply saddened when anyone is a victim of sexual assault or abuse,” the company said in a statement.

The foreign exchange agencies must follow State Department rules and guidelines but Chandler said there’s little to no oversight. Until that changes, she said cases like this will keep happening. 

Cohen claims he is dying and in hospice care but Chandler believes he’s just trying to delay the criminal and civil cases. 

The latest investigation of Cohen began after a 17-year-old son called a podcast and told listeners he’d been sexually abused by his adopted father since he was 11. He said his adopted siblings had also been repeatedly sexually assaulted.

The boy told listeners there had been eight Child Protective Services investigations but Cohen always threatened or bribed the victims so they wouldn’t tell the truth, according to court documents.

The teen said he had a burner phone so Cohen wouldn’t catch him making the call.

Others on the podcast urged the teen to get help for himself and his brothers. He said he was waiting until he turned 18 to report Cohen to law enforcement.

*All information below is from court documents.

A CPS investigator learned about the podcast, traced the IP address and contacted the 17-year-old, according to court records.

During an interview, the investigator played the podcast and said the boy was “visibly scared and shaking.” He confirmed he was the caller.

The teen then began describing what was going on behind closed doors. These are some of the allegations. The following is all from the charging document. 

• He said the abuse by Cohen began three weeks after he was adopted in 2016.
• He said Cohen made the boys massage his feet before molesting them and forcing them to perform a sex act on him.
• When he turned 14, the teen said Cohen began raping him.
• He said Cohen forced him and his younger brothers, now 16 and 14, to perform oral sex on him and on each other while he watched. He said the 16-year-old ran away but deputy constables returned him to the house.
• He said two 10-year-old brothers said they’d been abused, too, but the teen said he hadn’t witnessed it. He said when Cohen called any of the boys to his room, they all knew what that meant.
• Cohen also verbally abused his sons, calling them “white trash” and “racist,” according to the teen.
• He said Cohen uses a wheelchair and oxygen tanks in public or when people come over, but not when he’s alone with his sons.
• The boy said Cohen warned him that if he told anyone it would be his word against Cohen and his siblings.

He told the investigator he was “not brave enough to say anything.”

Even after Cohen was charged in the 2019 case, the nine sons were left in the home with him. 

 They have now been removed and placed in foster care.

Editor’s note: KHOU 11 did a profile of Cohen and his nine sons in 2019 before any of the allegations came to light. He had not been charged at that time.

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