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Criminal Case (Tel Aviv) 40013/05 State of Israel v. Uri Resch - part 135

September 13, 2011
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In the fourth, fifth and sixth charges, the only fact attributed specifically to defendant 4 is that he received the goods, knowing that they had been obtained by crime.  As part of the seventh indictment, the prosecution added another fact – receipt of an invoice as a false reference.  As stated, Adv. Meirovich argues that the prosecution refrained from recounting the role of defendant 4, and according to her, "there is not a shred of evidence linking Mr. Kalmaro to the execution of what is stated in these charges."  No evidence was presented from which it can be concluded that Defendant 4 contacted other defendants for the purpose of committing the offenses, or that he had connections of one kind or another that helped him forge the stamp of the collector bank on the bill of lading, or that he attached a document posing as a sales account to the forged bill of lading.  In addition, it was not proven that defendant 4 received the goods fraudulently with the aim of defrauding the supplier of the goods or in order to evade payment of import taxes.  It was further argued that even if the goods came into the hands of OPCI for sale, it was not proven that defendant 4 received them knowing that they were obtained through a crime.  The goods were not sold to the company under suspicious circumstances, under conditions of secrecy or in a dark side alley, but in a normal, commercial and legitimate manner.  If the destination of the goods had been OPCI in the first place, defendant 4 would have executed the orders himself without the need for intermediaries, such as defendant 3.

The recording of the conversation between Defendant 1 and Defendant 3 shows that Yehoshua Shlosh (Defendant 2 in the original indictment) is in the secret of matters, on matters that were not at all known to Defendant 4 or Defendant 3, as far as the fraudulent scheme concocted by Defendant 1.

In summary, it was argued that the evidence relating to the fourth, fifth and seventh charges shows that the goods did indeed reach the company OPCI, and some of them were sold by the company.  The part that was not sold was returned to defendant 1.  At no stage did defendant 4 have any suspicion, even the slightest one, that the goods were obtained in a crime.  The accuser had no evidence indicating the involvement of defendant 4 in the commission of offenses relating to supplier fraud, forgery or use of forged documents, presentation of documents for the purpose of releasing goods without payment of appropriate taxes and/or any additional fact enumerated in these charges.  In addition, it was not proven that defendant 4 knew that the invoices that were given to him for the funds paid by the company OPCI "were issued by shell companies and that the import licenses and additional documents related to the imports are forged."  In light of the above, the court was asked to acquit defendant 4 of the offenses attributed to him in the framework of charges 4, 5 and-7.

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