Last update - 00:00 12/12/2006
Sports instructor sentenced to 14 years in jail for abusing 11 children
By Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz Correspondent
Nazareth District Court on Sunday sentenced a sports instructor to 14 years in prison and three additional years probation for sexually and physically abusing the children and teens he had been instructing. The sentence was released for publication on Tuesday.
The 28-year-old instructor directed a program in which he supervised teenage counselors in addition to coaching children as young as five years old.
The indictment against him includes 13 counts of sexual and physical abuse against 11 of the children that had been under his supervision.
The presiding judges, headed by the president of the Nazareth District Court Menahem Ben-David, wrote in the verdict that "in the indictment, different acts are described, including stroking the victims' private body parts, kissing them on the mouth and the behind, penetrating their anus with his penis - all of which the victims resisted. Some cried and pleaded with him to stop, but to no avail. A few incidents were prevented when a child was able to push the man away."
In addition, the judges wrote "he beat the victims with his hands or a stick, kicked them, whipped them with barbed wire and slapped their faces. He threatened all the victims that should they report the abuse, he would harm them."
The judges commented on the indictment, saying, "The charges are shocking. We wholeheartedly agree with the prosecutor in this case regarding the severity of the crimes committed by the defendant against these children, whose parents left them in his care. He betrayed their trust. He used his status as an instructor and performed acts that will scar these innocent children for the rest of their lives."
"Nothing prevented this man from repeatedly abusing children. This case requires us to hand down a particularly harsh sentence so that he will be afraid, and others will be afraid to commit similar crimes," the judges added.
The victims had been abused for a period of up to 2.5 years.