Woman, 82, jailed for a year for leaving scene of hit-and-run that killed 4-year-old boy

The Petah Tikva Transportation Court on Monday sentenced a woman, 82, to a year in prison for leaving the site of a road accident when her car hit and killed a four-year-old boy, even though she was never convicted of responsibility for the incident that sparked widespread protests among members of Israel’s Ethiopian community.

Carol Fessler was given one year behind bars and another year’s suspended sentence for fleeing the scene of the accident in Netanya in May 2023, after she hit Rafael Adana as he and his grandfather crossed a road without a pedestrian crossing. The child was critically injured and died several days later.

Adana’s parents criticized the sentence as being too light and said they would consider an appeal.

Fessler was not indicted for causing the boy’s death. She claimed that she did not realize that she hit anyone, and believed that a motorcyclist had hit and broken her side mirror, but had kept driving.

In addition to the prison sentence, Fessler was ordered to pay NIS 10,000 ($3,211) compensation, and her driving license was canceled permanently.

Deputy Court President Tal Peri noted that Fessler “hit the deceased and his grandfather and continued driving without stopping at the scene of the accident, and without checking the outcome of the accident and without summoning help.”

“The defendant was aware of a hit, and after the accident continued driving home,” he noted, “but did not report to the police that an accident happened and did not turn herself in.”

The court found that despite her advanced age and her claims of cognitive issues, she is independent and lucid, and therefore not immune to imprisonment.

Her defense asked for a delay in carrying out the sentence to allow an appeal.

Prosecuting attorney Sagi Segev said the court accepted that, though Fessler was not responsible for the accident, she was aware that she hit a person, “and despite that, decided to flee the location of the accident without offering help. This is misconduct that must be strongly condemned.”

Prosecutors had asked for three years in prison, he said, and would study the verdict before considering an appeal.

However, the boy’s family was furious at what they saw as a too-light sentence.

“I expected the court to give the most severe punishment,” Adana’s father Ziv, told the Kan public broadcaster.

“She could have saved him if she picked up the phone, and she lied about it afterwards,” he claimed.

The Adana family maintains that Fessler was not the driver of the car but her daughter, a claim discounted by police, who released a CCTV image of the mother driving.

“Is that the punishment for spilling the blood of a four-year-old who was left to die?” Ziv said to the Walla outlet. “We are shocked, is this the price of my son? A year? We all know that she was not driving.”

He said they will consider an appeal.

In August 2023, before charges were brought, some members of the Israeli-Ethiopian community staged protests in Tel Aviv demanding action and alleging that the police were dragging out the case and enabling a cover-up.

A protest that month turned violent when a police officer was stabbed and moderately wounded. The suspect ultimately charged with the stabbing was found to have a long history of violence and mental illness and had set out with the intent of harming police officers, not protesting, prosecutors said.

Fessler was first charged in November 2023 and was initially convicted in 2024 of neglect under a plea. But she later retracted, and her attorney argued that she could not be charged with that offense since she did not believe she had harmed anyone. The Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court accepted the argument, leading her to ultimately be charged with leaving the scene of the accident.

The Ethiopian community has charged authorities with discriminatory legal treatment in the past. In 2019, the community held major protests over the fatal shooting of a community member by an off-duty police officer. In 2015, a large demonstration in support of the Ethiopian community and against police brutality and racism turned violent, leading to massive unrest at Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square.