A former tourism minister for the Yisrael Beytenu party will go to jail for 15 months and pay a NIS 70,000 (just under $20,000) fine after a court on Tuesday approves a plea bargain for breach of trust.
Stas Misezhnikov, 48, who served as minister in 2009-2013, was accused of ensuring his ministry’s funding of a student festival in 2012 in the southern port city of Eilat and then asking organizers to employ his romantic partner, Julia Roth, in return. Organizers complied, paying her tens of thousands of shekels during the period in question. The ministry’s funding came to some NIS 1 million ($270,000).
In the course of the investigation, he was also charged with having sent aides to buy cocaine, which he allegedly consumed during official events in Israel and abroad. Those charges were dropped in the plea deal.
The revised indictment and the terms of the deal were submitted to the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court last month.
The charges against Misezhnikov were linked to a massive corruption investigation into a number of Yisrael Beytenu party officials.
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Tuesday, November 21, 2017
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