Yaakobi usually committed the acts in an inner room next to the kitchen in the synagogue, and after threatening the minor with a kitchen knife that he stuck to his throat, he would not tell anyone about the acts, otherwise he would kill him. Yaakobi stopped the acts only after the minor moved to pray in another synagogue.
In the sentencing arguments phase, Advocate Racheli Atias of the Southern District Attorney’s Office petitioned for an appropriate sentence ranging from 25-20 years of actual imprisonment, noting that the defendant blatantly exploited the minor’s arrival to pray in the synagogue, a sacred place that was supposed to be safe and protected The minor and took advantage of being a volunteer instead of carrying out his plot cynically and rudely.
The district court imposed, as stated, on the defendant 11 years of actual imprisonment, probation and compensation in the amount of NIS 100,000 per complainant. The verdict stated that “the imposition of a long and prolonged imprisonment will be significant in light of the defendant’s advanced age … There can be no doubt that these are offenses that expressed cruelty to a minor over a number of years. “To the fact … that this is a weak defendant, who tried to explain his actions in completely unacceptable and unreasonable explanations in a way that testified to his weakness.”