Military prosecutors nix plea deal for officer facing over 70 counts of sex crimes

The Military Prosecution on Wednesday announced it had backed away from a plea deal signed with an officer accused of filming his female subordinates while nude without their knowledge, following opposition from many of the victims.

Lt. Col. Dan Sharoni is on trial for over 70 counts of sex offenses for his actions, which also included collecting sexual images of soldiers and some civilians over the course of at least eight years.

While many were opposed, some of the victims supported the deal according to which Sharoni would confess to the charges and be sentenced to several years in prison, demoted to the rank of private and be required to pay compensation to the 49 victims totaling NIS 250,000 ($72,000).

However, the deal would have seen Sharoni benefit from a significant military pension despite him being too young. Sharoni is currently two years away from the required age for a military pension, and his sentencing trial would therefore have been scheduled for April 2024.

Military pensions are generous, and as they are awarded from age 46, they give officers the ability to launch lucrative second careers on top of their large pension packages.

Amid a public outcry over the deal, the chief of the IDF said he would revoke the pension, but Sharoni’s immediate family could still request a monthly stipend, which the disgraced officer would not benefit from.

The deal also included the possibility of Sharoni serving his sentence under house arrest, which would allow him to attend a rehabilitation program.

“After examining the matter as a whole, and in light of the seriousness of the crimes attributed to Sharoni and the severe harm he caused to the victims, the court found that public interest required a withdrawal from the settlement,” the Military Prosecution said Wednesday.

The decision came after chief prosecutor Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi held a series of meetings with victims to better present the terms of the possible plea deal.

According to the December indictment, Sharoni used numerous hidden cameras, including some placed inside phone chargers, to film soldiers under his command, often installing them in their barracks and showers. He was also accused of taking soldiers’ phones for seemingly innocuous reasons and looking through them to see if they had nude or intimate photos on them and then copying those to his own device.

The indictment lists 49 victims, both female and male, though there may have been others. The majority were soldiers, though he also installed the devices in homes, including his own, and thus also filmed civilians. In addition, he was accused of entering some of his victims’ rooms while they slept and masturbating while filming them.

According to the charge sheet, Sharoni committed his crimes from 2013 to 2021, while he served in three different units in the military. In many of the cases, the victims were soldiers and officers with whom Sharoni had close relationships.

He faces 43 counts of privacy violation, 30 counts of indecency, one count of attempted indecency for a case in which he installed a hidden camera in someone’s room but ultimately only photographed them fully clothed, three counts of illegally hacking a computer, one count of impeding the work of a Military Police officer and one count of conduct unbecoming a soldier.

Sharoni has been dismissed from his position and has been in jail since his arrest in November.

Times of Israel Staff contributed to this report.