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A Haifa Municipality employee was sentenced Sunday to four years in prison for distributing tens of thousands of sex photos and videos of 187 young women on Telegram without their knowledge.
The court also ordered 30-year-old Ronen Sheikh to pay a fine of NIS 3,000 to each of the victims.
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Ronen Sheikh during a remote hearing at the Haifa Magistrate's Court
(Photo: Gil Nechushtan)
He admitted to the charges attributed to him as part of a plea deal, with the prosecution calling it the most severe punishment handed down since the passage of the 2014 prohibition on posting sexual imagery on the internet without consent.
The law, which passed in 2014 as an amendment to the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Law, bans the online distribution of images and videos containing sexual content without the express permission of those appearing in the material.
Sheikh was also sentenced to an additional two months in prison for abusing the access his work provided to copy credit card numbers belonging to Haifa residents without their permission.
"He brutally invaded the holiest of holies for these women's privacy, while exemplifying a complete disregard and lack of care for the damage caused by him, with his intentions fully dedicated to commercial and financial gain," wrote Judge Shlomo Benjo in the verdict.
He also mentioned in the verdict a testimony given by one of the victims who said that she was forced to undergo plastic surgery so she would not be recognized.