Court convicts Sara Netanyahu of corruption in plea deal

Sara Netanyahu, the prime minister’s wife, was convicted of corruption in the “Prepared Food Affair” as part of a plea bargain on Sunday, which ended a four-year legal battle.

A deal was pressed heavily by the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court which approved the deal, making the conviction final and giving Sara Netanyahu a criminal record, though as part of the agreement the charges were reduced. Netanyahu was sentenced to pay NIS 55,000, reduced from the original charge of NIS 359,000.

Under the deal, the prime minister’s wife confessed to a reduced charge of intentionally exploiting another person’s error, in lieu of the original more serious charge of fraud.

The state has also reserved the right to sue Netanyahu in civil court for an additional NIS 175,000.

The last point of allowing the state to sue her in civil court may have been what caused contradictory indications last week about whether her plea bargain was in doubt.

Meanwhile on Sunday, the High Court of Justice rejected a petition to veto the plea deal as too lenient.

The state also filed a response to the High Court last week defending the plea bargain.

The petition had called the plea bargain caving into political pressure and treating Netanyahu far too leniently, which would lead to a loss of public faith in the legal system and the rule of law.

The state responded that the deal was within its discretion and that the rule of law was being validated, since it had compelled Netanyahu to confess to a crime after years in which she adamantly refused to admit any wrongdoing.

An agreed upon revised indictment had been due to be filed already last Monday. However, the revised indictment was not filed until last Wednesday, due to surprise last-minute objections by Mrs. Netanyahu – despite the fact that her lawyers had agreed to the deal on May 29.

Initially on Monday, the prosecution said it had given her a 24-hour extension to come back around to the deal. But at press time on Tuesday the deal was still not yet final.

Still, late Tuesday evening, a Justice Ministry spokeswoman (who had sounded ambiguous all day) finally said that it would likely be filed Wednesday morning.

While Sara Netanyahu has a history of seeming ready to agree to deals and then backing out, the May 29 deal was the first one confirmed by the prosecution.

Last June, Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit filed an indictment against the prime minister’s wife for fraud with aggravated circumstances and breach of public trust.

The attorney-general alleged that from September 2010 until March 2013, Netanyahu acted in coordination with the other defendant in the case, former Prime Minister’s Office deputy director-general Ezra Seidoff, to falsely misrepresent that the Prime Minister’s Residence did not employ a chef.

According to the allegations, Netanyahu and Seidoff made misrepresentations to circumvent and exploit regulations that stated: “In a case where a cook is not employed in the [prime minister’s] official residence, it is permitted to order prepared food as needed.”

The two hoped to obtain state funding both for the chef at the residence and for prepared food orders. In this way, the two allegedly obtained from the state NIS 359,000 for hundreds of prepared food orders.

However, Netanyahu’s lawyers appear to have reduced the NIS 359,000 sum to NIS 175,000, using various defenses.

In addition, the revised indictment made it sound like Netanyahu did not actively act falsely, but merely passively did not tell some of the office staff that there was a cook and that having a cook meant she needed to limit prepared food orders.

Furthermore, in 15 instances, invoices to chefs who were brought in from outside were falsified in order to circumvent limits on how much could be paid toward outside chefs. Seidoff directed the chefs, the house managers and Netanyahu’s secretaries to falsify the invoices in these instances.

Charges against Netanyahu for these 15 instances were previously closed by Mandelblit, as there was insufficient evidence to prove that she knew about the actions of Seidoff and the others.

Seidoff’s plea deal includes admitting to the same crime as Sara Netanyahu, with a fine of NIS 10,000 as well as community service hours, which will be set by the court.

Originally there were six other probes of Mrs. Netanyahu, but Mandelblit closed the other cases without an indictment.

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