Eran Mizrahi, the investment manager from Savyon who was dubbed "the Israeli Madoff" will be jailed for twelve years and fined NIS 300,000, the Tel Aviv District Court decided in its sentence handed down today. The state prosecutor had demanded a 15-year prison sentence.
Mizrahi was also ordered to compensate his victims to the tune of NIS 258,000 each.
In passing sentence, Judge Zvi Gurfinkel said, "Mizrahi's victims, some of them old people, wiped out their last savings, money intended for their old age and for a rainy day."
Mizrahi's attorney Adv. Menahem Rubinstein, said, "The main message that emerges from here is for the investment community. They and Eran Mizrahi have in common that they are all greedy, and there are no easy profits." Mizrahi intends to appeal against the sentence to the Supreme Court.
Mizrahi was convicted on April 18 of fraudulently extracting some NIS 57 million from dozens of people who were tempted into investing their money with him, and of stealing NIS 47 million of this amount.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 4, 2013
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013