People who exploit old people, steal from them, blackmail them and even beat them must be severely punished. This vulnerable population is being exploited by heartless people and the court that intervenes, of course, has raised the penalty threshold. The question – if we know about all the cases, the question is what do old men / women whose cases do not reach the court; The big question is why the state is waiting for the active activity of this weak sector to understand that there is a complaint / problem, and is not itself examining the situation of the elderly. It expresses more than anything the state of our society and we must maintain this sector – this sector is us / all of us sooner or later.
The court raised the penalty threshold in the latest ruling – the District Court in the High Court accepted the position of the State Attorney’s Office and aggravated the sentence of Anat Dayan from Ashkelon, who was convicted of stealing more than half a million blind 84-year-old Holocaust survivors. In practice and increased the amount of compensation to NIS 250,000, instead of 32 months imprisonment and compensation in the amount of NIS 100,000 imposed on her in a magistrate’s court.
The district court noted in the ruling that “protecting the general public and especially populations with relative weakness is one of the main goals of criminal law. In practice, offenses committed while exploiting the victim’s weakness are severely punished.”
This is the defendant, who was employed between the years 2016-2019 as the complainant’s assistant, as a Holocaust survivor, a blind person assisted by a close-knit caregiver, whose children live in the US and Eilat. , Buying food, etc., and in this context, the defendant was given full access to the credit cards and secret code of the complainant.
From the first month of her employment and for about 3 years, the defendant took advantage of the complainant’s disability and helplessness, and fraudulently and in various ways stole from him the royalties of the Holocaust survivors he received, Social Security and other insurances, totaling NIS 550,000. Some of the theft was carried out by the defendant repeatedly standing next to the complainant while it trusted her, instructing her to withdraw required funds and she withdraws a larger amount, taking the balance of the money into her pocket.
In addition, the defendant used the complainant’s credit cards for her personal needs, and made purchases at clothing, food and pet store stores. The defendant also stole checkbooks from the complainant, forged them, bought goods from them or exchanged them for cash. In an attempt to conceal her actions, the defendant deposited funds into the complainant’s account and made transfers from account to account. The defendant’s actions were stopped only after they were discovered by the complainant’s son.
Defendant pleaded guilty and was convicted of committing offenses of theft by an employee, receiving anything fraudulently under aggravated circumstances and using a forged document with intent to obtain anything through him.
The Magistrate’s Court in the High Court imposed on the defendant a sentence of 32 months’ imprisonment, less days of detention, while giving weight to her personal circumstances, as well as compensation to the complainant in the amount of NIS 100,000.
The Southern District Attorney’s Office (criminal) appealed the sentence to the district court, while the defendant on the other hand filed an appeal of its severity. The aforesaid district court dismissed the defendant’s appeal, accepted the prosecution’s appeal and significantly aggravated her sentence, stating that the appellate court did not exhaust the sentence.
The District Court in the High Court noted that the defendant had blatantly and severely violated the complainant’s trust and reached out with his own funds. More than once the thefts were in front of the “closed eyes” of the complainant, when he was present beside her while she was withdrawing money with his credit card which she handed over, while cynically exploiting the emotionlessness of his disability. ”
The Southern District Attorney’s Office (Criminal) stated: The court today sent a deterrent message not only to the defendant herself, but also to potential criminals lurking in the elderly population in Israel, with the court noting that the appellate court is not exhaustive. The resilience of society in its attitude toward the elderly population in Israel and the observance of the mitzvah “from return to resurrection” is measured, among other things, by “judicial resilience”, as the court reflects social values and shapes them accordingly.
The prosecution will continue to use all the tools at its disposal in order to aggravate the punishment of defendants for committing theft offenses and fraud such as those that harm the social “soft underbelly”.
The state was represented in the appeal proceedings by attorneys Daniel Gilad, Tehila Galante, Ravit Marom and Lenny Montilio Segal of the Southern District Attorney’s Office (criminal).