Dimona man indicted for rape-by-deception

29-year-old allegedly groomed girls over Internet by pretending to be female soldier; Danino also charged with blackmailing minors.

By JOANNA PARASZCZUK
Rape victim (photo credit: Judy Siegel-Itzkovich)
Rape victim
(photo credit: Judy Siegel-Itzkovich)
The Haifa District Attorney filed an indictment in the Haifa District Court Friday, charging a 29-year-old Dimona man with counts of indecent assault, rape (using deception), attempted rape, blackmail by threats, and possession of obscene publications involving minors.
According to the indictment, Yitzhak Danino used the Internet to contact girls as young as 13. Allegedly, he falsely presented himself to the minors as a female soldier and later began to talk to them about sex, eventually persuading them to perform sex acts while he made video recordings of them without their knowledge.
Danino used the Hebrew language social networking site Mekusharim, as well as the oovoo and Skype chat tools, to conduct real-time text conversations with teenage girls, the indictment said.
He created fake user profiles on the sites, and also a fake Facebook account, in which he presented himself as a 18-year-old female soldier named Rinat from Beersheba.
According to one of the charges on the indictment, in December Danino posed as “Rinat” to contact one of the complainants, a 13-year-old girl, on the Mekusharim social networking site.
Danino began chatting with the complainant, and soon persuaded her to hold real-time private chats with him on oovoo and Skype, the indictment alleges.
Allegedly, on one occasion Danino used video chat to show the complainant an image of a girl’s body from the face down, wearing only her underwear, and telling her this was “Rinat.”
Danino is also charged with rape-by-deception, because he caused the complainant to perform a sex act on herself, while deceiving her into believing he was a different person.
On at least two occasions, the indictment said, Danino instructed the complainant to undress and perform a sex act on herself. As the complaint did so, Danino allegedly filmed her without her knowledge, using the video conferencing program.
Danino is also charged with using threats to blackmail the complainant, by threatening to publish the images and videos of her on YouTube and Facebook if she did not comply with his requests to perform the sex acts. In some cases, the complainant allegedly complied with Danino’s requests because of these threats.
A police search of Danino’s personal computer on March 11 found obscene images of minors, including nude photos, the indictment said.
The district attorney also requested that the court order Danino to be remanded in custody for the duration of the legal proceedings against him.