44 months for IDF officer who sexually assaulted minors

25-year-old officer groomed teens on social network, pretended to be 16; sentence part of plea bargain in which Nahum admitted to charges.

By JOANNA PARASZCZUK
Court gavel justice judge legal law 311 (photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
Court gavel justice judge legal law 311
(photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
The Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court sentenced Eyal Nahum, a 25-year-old IDF officer convicted of sexually assaulting and harassing girls as young as 10, to 44 months in prison on Wednesday.
The sentence was part of a plea bargain in which Nahum had admitted to the charges against him. The court also ordered Nahum to compensate several of his victims to a total of NIS 20,000.
Nahum groomed his victims via the “Shox” social networking site for teenagers, the indictment read.
For four years, from 2006 to 2010, Nahum used the social networking site to send thousands of sexually explicit chat messages to young teenage girls, in an attempt to persuade them to meet him for sex. He also persuaded other girls to participate in sexually explicit internet chats using a webcam.
He told the girls he was just 16.
“I wanted to tell you I’m looking for more girl ‘students,’ since I’ve learned quite a lot about sex.
If you’re brave and curious and have questions, you can contact me – of course it will remain just between the two of us,” Nahum wrote in a message to several of the girls he groomed.
Nahum managed to persuade several girls, all under 16, to meet him, and he then performed sexual acts on them.