Convicted cop Eran Malka asks court for leniency

Disgraced investigator tells judge he is ‘not a criminal,’ ‘admitted wrongdoing,’ and asks for less than 5 years in prison

Disgraced senior police investigator Eran Malka on Sunday begged the Jerusalem District Court to give him a lenient sentence.

Former police superintendent Malka, once a top member of the elite Lahav 433 anti-corruption investigation unit, was convicted in June by the Jerusalem District Court after signing a plea bargain in which he admitted to systematically leaking sensitive information about police investigations to attorney Ronel Fisher, who then used the information to obtain clients and solicit bribes, which Fisher and Malka would share.

The case is the most dramatic scandal to hit the scandal-plagued police in recent years.

But at his sentencing hearing Sunday, Malka focused on his life before meeting Fisher. He asked the judge to give him far less than the 10 years in prison sought by prosecutors.

“The accused has struck at the holy of holies of the law enforcement system,” prosecutors from the Justice Ministry’s Police Investigations Department said.

But Malka insisted he was “not a criminal. I don’t exhibit criminal behaviors.”

Until he became embroiled in Fisher’s web of bribery and corruption, he said, “I was a person who did almost everything for other people, for the public. I contributed more than the average person in this country.”

Malka noted that he had admitted his wrongdoing — in exchange for prosecutors removing any monetary penalties from their sentencing request, saving Malka’s family from financial ruin — “and I wish I could roll back the clock…. I’ve fallen to a depth I could not have imagined,” losing his career and ability to work, his license to practice law, his friends.

Defense attorneys have asked for two to five years in prison.

Ronel Fisher was the target of a year-long investigation detailing a number of charges, mostly dealing with his facilitating the transfer of sensitive legal documents between police and criminal suspects. He was arrested in June 2014 for allegedly selling confidential information to Ashdod Port union leader Alon Hassan about a corruption case against the port. He also allegedly acted as a bribe middleman, transferring suitcases of cash from his clients to police so that investigations could be dropped.

Fisher is also on trial at the Jerusalem District Court.

Avi Lewis contributed to this report.