Supreme Court upholds graft conviction of ex-Ramat Gan mayor

The Supreme Court on Sunday upheld the graft conviction against former Ramat Gan mayor Zvi Bar, but agreed to reduce his prison time by almost half.

The three-judge panel upheld the ruling, adding that while Bar, 81, “systematically accepted bribes” during his term in office, his age and medical condition warranted his five and a half year sentence be reduced to three.

Justices Uzi Fogelman, Isaac Amit and Noam Sohlberg did, however, acquit the ex-mayor of money laundering and tax evasion, two lesser charges on a laundry list of offenses Bar was convicted of last year.

The former mayor’s court-ordered compensation of NIS 1.5 million ($391,000) was also reduced to NIS 800,000.

Last year, the Tel Aviv District Court convicted Bar of bribery, breach of trust, money laundering and tax evasion.

The court ruled that Bar, who served as the mayor of Ramat Gan for nearly 25 years, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for promoting a number of real estate projects during his term in office.

According to court documents, all of the offenses took place between 2003 and 2008, when Bar also served as a director on local and provincial planning agencies.

Earlier this year, Israel Police recommended indicting Ramat Gan’s current mayor, Israel Singer, on charges of fraud and breach of trust.

Investigators said that in his 2013 election campaign to succeed Bar as mayor, Singer and top city official Amnon Butz offered benefits to activists and service providers who assisted in Singer’s run for office.