It appears that the so-called “Tinder Swindler” has finally wriggled free from the legal complications tied to his notorious online dating escapades.
Shimon Hayut, an Israeli native, adopted the alias Simon Leviev and masqueraded as a member of a renowned billionaire diamond dynasty. Multiple women have alleged that he exploited this fabricated identity to charm and swindle them out of substantial sums of money.
In 2022, the actual Leviev family initiated legal proceedings against Simon in Israel, accusing him of damaging their reputation and misleading both women and various enterprises by misusing their family name, which they claimed severely affected their businesses.
Page Six has learned that, as of Thursday, Simon and the Leviev family have come to an agreement to resolve their conflict.
Court documents, translated for Page Six, reveal that as part of the settlement, Simon has agreed to refrain from representing himself—either directly or indirectly—as a member of the Leviev family or as having any connection to the Leviev family businesses, including LLD Diamonds USA, LLC. In exchange, the Levievs have agreed to withdraw the remainder of their lawsuit.
The matter was resolved without any determination of guilt.
It’s the last of the legal challenges facing Simon.
He served two and a half years in a Finnish prison after he was found guilty of defrauding the women. He also served 15 months in an Israeli prison after being convicted of four fraud charges, but was released after five months.
TMZ was first to report on the settlement.
The tale was covered in a hit Netflitx documentary, the “Tinder Swindler,” in 2022. It showed how he flaunted a luxurious, jet-setting lifestyle to convince the women he was an ultra-wealthy scion, only to come up with dire emergencies that, he claimed, he needed loans from the women to escape from.
Chagit Leviev, CEO of Leviev Group USA and daughter of Israeli diamond billionaire Lev Leviev, previously told Page Six that the family had spent years trying to stop him.
“We have suffered from the ‘Tinder Swindler’ for years,” she said in 2022. “We knew he was defrauding companies and other women who reached out. We tried so hard to make him stop, fought him, and reported him to the police.”
On Friday Leviev framed the settlement as a vindication.
“If they had evidence like that, I would be sitting behind bars right now,” he told Page Six. “I’m not. I’m sitting in the most expensive hotel in Brazil.”
His lawyer, Sharon Nahari, also said extradition proceedings in Germany have been closed and that there are no remaining criminal cases against him in Europe.
He also argued that public opinion turned him into a villain before the facts were fully examined.
“The world likes to find this villain, this bad guy that everybody likes to hate,” he said. “But I’m not this guy. Sorry to disappoint everyone.”
Leviev says the Netflix documentary changed his life, bringing him worldwide fame and new business opportunities.