SUNNY ISLES BEACH, Fla. – A South Florida landlord who was the subject of a series of Local 10 investigations — and who was arrested — after spray-painting a vulgar insult on a tenant’s doorbell camera is in trouble again.
Ori Gal, 53, is now accused in a child abuse case a little more than two years after Local 10 News spotlighted issues at an apartment building he owned in Dania Beach. In 2023, the Israeli national was caught on camera spray-painting “FAT F---” on a tenant’s front door.
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This time, police said Gal pushed his stepson to the ground in Sunny Isles Beach. The pair have been “living together as a family unit for several months,” police said.
Though Gal was arrested in the Sunny Isles Beach case on Saturday, police said the incident happened on Jan. 9.
According to an arrest report, that afternoon, Gal’s stepson had come to the front door of a home in the 300 block of 188th Street after he had gotten out of school. Police said he knocked because he didn’t have a key, but Gal would not let him in to get his computer.
The report states the boy then went to a neighbor’s to borrow his cellphone — his own had died — and call his mother.
Police said when the boy came back, Gal “answered the door and forcefully pushed him by the chest using both hands open, causing him to fall backward onto the ground.”
The report states that when the boy got up, “his stepfather pushed him again by the head.”
A witness said he saw the “crying and screaming” boy and Gal pushing him, leading him to intervene, police said.
Authorities said they pulled over Gal just after midnight Saturday in the 18500 of Collins Avenue after noticing he had expired tags and arrested him in the alleged abuse case.
Police said he denied “being involved in any physical altercation with the victim.”
Gal, facing a felony child abuse charge, was ordered held on a $5,000 bond and to submit to house arrest if he leaves jail. As of Monday, he remained in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
Broward court records show Gal was allowed to enter a diversion program in the spraypainting case.