Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been convicted of bribery and public corruption.The Jerusalem District Court this morning found that Olmert took envelopes filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from American Jewish businessman Morris "Moshe" Talansky.
Above: Ehud Olmert
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been convicted of bribery and public corruption. According to Ynet, the Jerusalem District Court this morning found that Olmert took envelopes filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from American Jewish businessman Morris "Moshe" Talansky.
According to the New York Times:
…Eyal Rosovsky, a lawyer for Mr. Olmert, said the defense team was “very disappointed” with the ruling and would decide whether to appeal after studying the verdict.
Mr. Olmert left the court building without making any statement. He is due to be sentenced in May.
Monday’s conviction in the Jerusalem District Court came a year after Mr. Olmert was convicted of taking bribes in another case involving the construction of a huge housing complex in Jerusalem. A judge sentenced Mr. Olmert to six years in prison in that case, dashing any hopes the former prime minister might have had of a political comeback. The start of that sentence has been postponed pending an appeal.
Mr. Olmert was acquitted in July 2012 of corruption charges in the Talansky case and another case involving travel expenses.
At the time, a panel of three judges ruled unanimously that the evidence did not prove beyond doubt that Mr. Olmert had acted with criminal intent in the Talansky affair. They said that Mr. Talansky was a problematic witness whose testimony proved correct in part while also containing statements that were “incorrect and even false.”
Mr. Olmert was convicted of breach of trust in a third matter in 2012, but it was the least serious of the charges he faced at the time, and he was not sentenced to prison.
The retrial in the Talansky case came after Shula Zaken, Mr. Olmert’s longtime aide and confidante, turned state witness and testified against him, providing the police with tapes she had made of apparently incriminating conversations she had had with Mr. Olmert.…