Harsher charges after Haifa hit-and-run victim dies

Moran Maron was charged on May 7 with abandoning an injured person and disrupting the investigation regarding the accident.

By JOANNA PARASZCZUK
Justice gavel court law book judge 311 (photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
Justice gavel court law book judge 311
(photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank)
A 23-year-old man indicted after a Haifa hit-and-run accident will now face additional charges after one of the victims died, the Haifa District Attorney’s Office said on Thursday.
Moran Maron was charged on May 7 with abandoning an injured person and disrupting the investigation regarding the accident, in which an elderly woman and her daughter were injured.
The amended indictment charges Maron with causing death by negligence, which carries a maximum three-year prison term.
In a request to the court to add the new charge on Thursday, Haifa Deputy District Attorney Eran Bar-On said that one of the two victims, 83-year-old Faina Feinzilberg, had died from her injuries in the city’s Rambam Medical Center on Wednesday. Since the accident, Feinzilberg had been kept under deep sedation and was on a respirator, Bar-On said.
Two other men, Anton Asfur, 21, and Roget Gallianos, 23 – both alleged to be passengers in the car at the time of the accident, have also been charged.
According to the indictment, the accident occurred on Aliya Street in Haifa on April 21, when Maron swerved his car onto the sidewalk and smashed into Feinzilberg, a wheelchair user, and her 62-year-old daughter, Larisa Goldenberg.
Feinzilberg and Goldenberg were both seriously injured, and were rushed to hospital each with multiple fractures and head injuries.
However, instead of stopping to help the two women or call an ambulance, Moran, Asfur and Gallianos drove to the beach near the Bat Galim neighborhood, the indictment said, where they ripped off the car’s license plates and fled.
Allegedly, Maron had been at the wheel even though he had previously been disqualified and did not have an insurance policy for his car.
In addition to the new charge of causing death by negligence, Moran is charged under the 1961 Traffic Ordinance with abandonment after injuring a person, driving while disqualified, driving without due care and attention, endangering life and causing injury, as well as other traffic offenses.
Asfur and Gallianos are both charged under the Traffic Ordinance with failing to call emergency services after an accident, and under the Penal Code with obstructing justice and changing the identity of a vehicle.