Ex-Hadera deputy mayor gets 6 months' community service

Court sentences Shmuel “Sami” Levy after convicted of consensual prohibited sex, attempted assault, breach of trust, abuse of power, fraud.

By JOANNA PARASZCZUK
311_gavel (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
311_gavel
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
The Haifa District Court sentenced former Hadera deputy mayor Shmuel “Sami” Levy to six months of community service on Sunday, following his conviction in a plea bargain last week for consensual prohibited sex, attempted assault, breach of trust and abuse of power and fraud.
The court also sentenced Levy, the former leader of Shas’s Hadera branch, to a further eight months’ probation and ordered him to pay compensation totaling NIS 25,000 to the three plaintiffs in the case.
Levy was originally indicted in February on charges of rape and performing an obscene act as well as a string of corruption offenses including fraud and accepting bribes.
The prosecution charged that Levy had raped three women who had approached him on matters relating to his office as deputy mayor.
However, in a plea bargain struck last week, the charge of rape was replaced with the lesser charge of consensual prohibited sex.
In accepting the lesser charge, the court had noted that no violence had been involved.
In sentencing Levy, Judge Ron Shapira wrote that the former official had abused his position of public trust and brought disgrace on the office of deputy mayor.
“Violations of integrity in public service are crimes that, by their very nature, bring disgrace. This is a case of exploiting power and exploiting a position that had been entrusted to a deputy by the public. The official violated the trust that had been placed in him to serve the public, and used his position of power in a way that harmed the public,” Shapira wrote.
“This is a case of exploiting power and position on the one hand, and exploiting the economic dependence of the victim of the crime by a deputy public official on the other. The disgracefulness of these acts is clear and distinct.”
In discussing his acceptance of the plea bargain, Shapira wrote: “There is no doubt that if it were not for the hearing in the framework of the plea bargain, the defendant would have deserved a far harsher punishment.”
Levy will carry out his community service at the Meir Panim public service institute in Or Akiva.