| The Magistrate’s Court in Ramla | |
| Criminal Case 58123-07-23 State of Israel v. Aharon et al.
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Before: The Honorable Judge Vice President Dorit Saban Noy
The accuser: מדינת ישראל
Through the Central District Attorney’s Office
Against
The defendants: 1. Ofir Chai Aharon
- Yair Dayan – not about him
On behalf of the accuser: Adv. Itay Gohar
On behalf of Defendant 1: Adv. Shiran Bergman
Sentence
- The amended indictment and plea bargain:
- The defendant was convicted in accordance with his confession as part of a plea bargain, on the facts of an amended indictment containing two charges. In the first charge, multiple offenses of sexual harassment and harassment under Sections 3(a)(5a) of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Law, 5758-1998 (hereinafter: the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Law) and multiple offenses of invasion of privacy under Section 5 in circumstances 2(4) of the Protection of Privacy Law, 5741-1981 (hereinafter: the Protection of Privacy Law), and in the second charge, for the offense of publishing obscenities involving the image of a minor, an offense under Section 214 (b) of the Penal Law, 5737-1977 (hereinafter: the Penal Law).
According to the general part of the facts of the amended indictment, from December 1, 2022 until May 28, 2023 (hereinafter: the period relevant to the indictment), Defendant 1 operated several user accounts in the Telegram application and used two usernames and three display names, in order to make it difficult to locate him.
"Telegram" is a system for transmitting instant messages and voice communication on the Internet and can be operated from various operating systems. The messages transmitted on the Telegram system, as a rule, are stored on the company's distributed servers around the world and, according to the user's settings, are also stored on the users' devices. The way the user is displayed is usually anonymous, and includes a display name and a username. Telegram allows the creation of groups and channels, and the user who joins the group, can send messages in it, he is exposed to all messages sent in the group and messages (including media) sent in the past.
"Mega" is a website and application that provides uploading and storage services of various types of files.
According to the facts of the first indictment, on December 1, 2022, Defendant 1 created the Telegram group "The group that is going to break everyone must send 5", and defined it as an open group to join (hereinafter: the Open Group). The purpose of the open group was to distribute videos and images of young Israeli women performing sexual acts or exposed images focusing on their sexuality, without their knowledge or consent (hereinafter: the sexual content). Defendant 1 acted in order to increase the amount of content in the open group and obligated the members of the group to distribute sexual content frequently. Thus, for example, he published on a number of occasions the rules of the open group, which he established as follows: