Golan Cipel: International Man of Mystery

The NYT profiles Cipel, and beyond a few gossipy tid-bits (his sister is married to comedian Yair Nitzani) basically concludes they don't have a clue who he is or what motivates him (as the NYT puts it: "the picture of Mr. Cipel... is murky.").
In the meanwhile, the NY Daily News claims that a college professor from Northern Jersey -- male -- is saying he was 'romantically involved' with him.

"There have been at least three people coming forward, and this person seems the most credible," a source familiar with the inquiry said.

The questions seem to be boiling down to: is he gay or not? Is he the blackmailing type, or not?
You know what I think? This might be a reverse case of Jerusalem Syndrome. Just like certain people arrive in the Holy City and are driven slightly insane by its power, there's a chance that Golan Cipel arrived in the Land of Opportunity, got swept up in a seductive, liberal culture, was seduced, possibly literally, by powerful people, and, alone and out of his depth, was driven to do things he might never consider doing under normal circumstances. I don't know exactly what those things are -- that, at the moment, still is a mystery -- but I do think that trying to find black-and-white answers to those key questions above might be the wrong way to approach this part of the story.