NEW YORK— A New York lawyer was sentenced Thursday to six months in jail for an ultramodern crime that was all about antiquity: Using online aliases to harass people in an academic debate about the Dead Sea Scrolls.Raphael Golb, 50, was sentenced on identity theft and other charges in a rare criminal case centered on Internet impersonation — and a very rare trial that aired a bitter scholarly debate over the scrolls' origins.The top count was punishable by up to four years in prison. Golb has said he plans to appeal.Golb's father is a historian and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar. Prosecutors said Golb used fake e-mail accounts and wrote blog posts under assumed names to discredit his father's detractors.
(photo credit: The Jerusalem Post)