The Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court yesterday sentenced a former public housing official to six years in prison for sexually extorting seven women.
Judge Hanan Efrati handed the prison sentence down to Ya'akov Cohen, who directed the collections department of the Halamish public housing corporation in Tel Aviv-Jaffa.
Cohen was convicted of sexually assaulting seven female residents after promising them he would reduce or cancel rent payments they owed on their apartments. A number of the complainants were single mothers.
The former official was convicted of seven separate counts of sexual extortion, sexual abuse and harassment as well as extorting NIS 10,000 from four residents of Halamish apartments who sought to reduce their payments.
Efrati also ordered Cohen to pay NIS 40,000 in compensation to the complainants.
The judge rejected the defense attorney's request to delay imprisonment, and ordered Cohen's immediate jailing.
Cohen would telephone some of the female tenants directly, put pressure on them, and request to visit them at home. One of the women, a single mother, said she acceded to Cohen's request to have sex, because she "was afraid they would throw me out of the apartment. Another woman said she agreed to have sex with Cohen in exchange for a reduction of her debt from NIS 3,000 to NIS 1,000.
"He told me very explicitly that the debt would be reduced, and it was reduced. I had relations with him because he helped me financially. He supported me. I would go and sleep with a stranger. I couldn't even bring my children a slice of bread, and I had no formula for my baby girl. I had no choice, so I went and slept with him," the woman told the court.
Cohen, 48, served as director of the company's collection department from September 1999 until April 2001, when the investigation into his activities commenced, and he was suspended.
As head of the collection department, Cohen was responsible for collecting rent from tenants of Halamish-owned apartments and arranging payments for tenants who had a backlog of unpaid rent.
