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Court sentences Boaz Yona to 7 years, doubles damages he must pay By Nurit Roth, Haaretz Correspondent Tags: Boaz Yona, Israel News  A judge sentenced Boaz Yona, former director of the property firm Heftsiba, to seven years in prison Wednesday for a litany of charges stemming from the collapse of the housing company, and an additional three-year suspended sentence. The Jerusalem District Court departed, though, from a plea bargain reached between the state and Yona, and doubled the amount of damages he was ordered to pay to NIS 8 million. Yona plead guilty and was convicted six weeks ago of a series of offenses, including fraudulent receipt in aggravated circumstances, theft and conspiracy to commit a crime. A plea bargain with the state attorney stipulated he would receive seven years in prison and an additional suspended sentence to be handed down in court, and would compensate apartment buyers NIS 4 million. Advertisement According to the indictment, between 1997 and 2007 Yona utilized his ownership of a series of private companies carrying very similar names (all including the name Heftsiba) to exploit payments received for apartments in the various projects for his own use, and failed to provide guarantees for the payments received as required by law, exposing them to financial risk. Yona fled to Italy when Heftsiba collapsed, leaving hundreds of homeowners stranded without either property or the money they had paid for it. Judge Moshe Ravid accepted the imprisonment element of the plea deal, but found that the compensation element was an inappropriately light given the circumstances of the case, which involved extended abuse of trust and caused damages to 4,500 families. Ravid said that in agreeing to the plea bargain, the state had not sufficiently considered the extent of the damages caused to these families, including interim housing for the victims, to ensure that they do not remain homeless. The judge also noted that Yona could have expected more severe prison sentencing if not for the plea deal. Related articles: Enemy of the people Heftsiba's Yona convicted of litany of charges including fraud, theft With a little help from his friends Bookmark to del.icio.us   The King is dead Archeologists find new evidence for King Herod's tomb site. Al-Hasbara Israel launches Arabic YouTube channel to bypass Arab media.

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