Despite recurring violent behavior, Magistrates' Court Judge Avital
Chen approved the plea bargain and then sentenced the man to three
months of community service with no prison time.
A Beit Shemesh arrest
Haredi Man Who Assaulted Media, Resisted Arrest Is Sentenced
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Moshe Friedman is a 28-year-old haredi man from Beit Shemesh who pleaded guilty to assaulting a news photographer and a Beit Shemesh city official last December at a religious freedom anti-extremism rally.
Three months before that rally, Friedman assaulted an Army Radio reporter as she was covering a haredi rally in the city, calling her "shiksa" and spitting at her several times. He was charged with assault in that case, as well.
But despite this recurring violent behavior, Magistrates' Court Judge Avital Chen approved Friedman’s plea bargain and then sentenced him to three months of community service with no prison time, claiming that Friedman was a family man, had no prior convictions, has accepted responsibility for his actions, and spent some time in prison immediately after his arrest, Ynet reported.
In the December 2011 incident, Friedman was convicted of shoving the photographer and blocking the photographer when he tried opening the back of his car. Friedman continued screaming and calling the media “Nazis.” He resisted arrest him and was charged with assaulting a public officer.
Friedman is also a leader of the group of Beit Shemesh haredim who repeatedly terrorized and assaulted little Modern Orthodox school girls as they walked to and from their grade school in the city. Friedman and his friends spat on the girls and chased them down the street while screaming “whores” and “shiksas.”
None of the haredim involved in those incidents have been brought to justice.