Hayim Cohen gained notoriety on YouTube and TikTok as a rabbi who took in children and cared for them. As time went on, the 40-year-old Texas man told his followers that he suffered from an illness and was in hospice.

But it turned out that, apparently, Cohen was neither terminally ill nor a rabbi — and he was sexually abusing his adopted sons.

On Monday, a Houston judge sentenced Cohen to 40 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to four counts of continuous sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child.

“You realize you are never going to get out of prison, you’re going to die in prison?” Judge Lanilo Lacayo asked Cohen.

The defendant continued to feign illness during the sentencing hearing, not answering Lacayo when he asked him his age.

“I know you understand everything I’ve said to you from the beginning to the end,” Lacayo said, according to local CBS affiliate KHOU. “You ran an interesting con, sir. You violated all these boys and you’re here today facing justice.”

Houston police detectives began investigating when one of the victims called into an Atlanta-based podcast on a burner phone and detailed the abuse. The podcaster contacted authorities.

Police arrested Cohen in February 2023 on allegations that he had abused six of his nine adopted sons. When they went to his house they were met with a hospice care provider purportedly looking after Cohen. However, when detectives took him to two hospitals, doctors could find nothing medically wrong with him.

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Being in jail has apparently not stopped Cohen from continuing to fake his sickness. In a hearing about a month after his arrest, he showed up in a wheelchair and a urine drainage bag. On Monday, he appeared in court with a shaved head and face, looking like he had lost a significant amount of weight. He was still in a wheelchair.

Prosecutors still believe he is mostly faking his illness.

The two sons of a slain Georgia man have sued the woman charged with killing him for wrongful death. The defendant, Suzanne Renee Mericle, 61, opened fire through the bedroom door after James David Barron, 68, backed away from an argument, according to the complaint viewed by Law&Crime.

“This family has suffered an unspeakable tragedy and this civil suit has been initiated to protect the family and their legal rights,” said the plaintiff statement, according to The Brunswick News. “The Barrons kindly request that their privacy be respected during this difficult time. Our firm generally does not comment on pending litigation and this is particularly true in a case like this, where an investigation is still ongoing. Therefore, we have no further comment at this time.”

The Florida mother of a 9-year-old boy who died years after hitting his head on a metal cart in Walmart is suing the megastore for allegedly creating a dangerous and unsafe condition that led to the boy’s death.

Tamika Springer is seeking damages beyond $30,000 in the death of her son, Saiy-Yah Allen, according to the complaint.

During testimony in the trial on Tuesday, Saiy-Yah’s sister spoke about her brother’s seizures in the years after the incident at a Fort Lauderdale location on Nov. 25, 2020, when the then-7-year-old boy walked into a metal stock cart and struck his head in a walkway.

“He would shake a lot and he would look in a different direction, and then he would shake and make noise, too,” Miharah Allen said. “Every time he ate, he would throw up, he would throw the food up or use the bathroom on himself.”

The testimony came as Walmart attorneys questioned whether his injury then led to his seizures and death on May 7, 2023, local NBC affiliate WTVJ reported.

The trial of James Crumbley — father of Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crubley — continued with an emotional second day of testimony on Friday, one day after the convicted murderer’s father had his telephone privileges suspended for allegedly making threatening statements. As the proceedings came to a close, prosecutors played footage of the heinous mass shooting that appeared to leave James Crumbley in tears.

James Crumbley is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with his son’s deadly rampage, which took place on Nov. 30, 2021. Oxford students Tate Myre, 16, Hana St. Juliana, 14, Madisyn Baldwin, 17, and Justin Shilling, 17, were killed when the then-15-year-old Ethan Crumbley opened fire on classmates and teachers inside of the school.

Prosecutors have argued that James Crumbley and his wife, Jennifer Crumbley, knew their son was troubled and failed to take any action to prevent the mass shooting. They had been called to the school the day of the shooting after teachers discovered disturbing and violent drawings he had made in a math workbook. The parents ultimately left the school after meeting with school officials and their son, while Ethan Crumbley stayed behind.

Jennifer Crumbley was convicted on the same charges in February. She is scheduled to be sentenced on April 9.

Footage of the shooting was shown during testimony from Oxford High School assistant principal Kristy Gibson-Marshall, who narrated the footage as played on a screen in the witness box. The administrator recounted seeing the shooter in the hallway and looking him in the eyes before he turned away from her. She then saw one of his victims on the ground and tried to resuscitate them.

A California man who, along with his wife, murdered their 11-year-old son, secreted away the child’s body and then reported him missing, will spend at least a decade-and-a-half in prison.

On Thursday, Jordan Thomas Piper, 38, was sentenced by an El Dorado County judge to a term of 15 years to life in prison for the murder of Roman Anthony Lopez, whose corpse was discovered hidden in a storage bin in the family’s basement on Jan. 11, 2020.

In late October 2023, Jordan Piper admitted to his part in Roman’s death, taking a plea deal for one count of murder in the second degree.

At first, the boy’s father and adoptive mother, Lindsay Piper, 40, insisted they were innocent and pleaded not guilty to various crimes connected to Lopez’s death. Their facades didn’t last long.