Supreme Court to rule on Talansky retrial today
Decision to determine whether 8 months will be added to former prime minister Olmert’s jail time
The Supreme Court will render its verdict in Ehud Olmert’s retrial on the Talansky Affair Wednesday morning.
The court will determine whether the former prime minister serves just the 19-month jail sentence he started in February for other crimes or whether as many as eight months are added on, which would bring the total time he will serve to 27 months.
In May 2015, the Jerusalem District Court sentenced Olmert to eight months in prison following his conviction in the Talansky retrial, one of three affairs covered in the Jerusalem corruption trial.
Olmert was convicted of illegally receiving, using and concealing at least $153,950 (of an alleged $600,000) funds in envelopes from New York businessman Morris Talansky from 1993 and 2002, with the case itself dating back to 2008.
Olmert became the first prime minister in the country’s history to be locked behind bars when he began an 18-month sentence for bribery in the Holyland real estate trial.
He received another month in prison as part of a plea bargain in the Shula Zaken tapes saga in which he tried to obstruct the various cases against him together with Zaken, his former top aide.
There is also a very outside chance that on top of the 19 months and possible additional eight months that another six months could be added for his July 2012 conviction in the Investment Center Affair. That is highly unlikely, however, since Olmert was sentenced to community service for that conviction and the Supreme Court justices did not appear excited by the idea during oral arguments.
In July 2012, the Jerusalem District Court acquitted Olmert in the original trial of the Talansky Affair and acquitted him in the Rishon Tours Affair, but convicted him in the Investment Center Affair, which related to the granting of favors in Olmert’s capacity as a minister to his confidante Uri Messer, despite a conflict of interest.
The Supreme Court ordered a retrial in the Talansky case in the summer of 2014 after shocking new recordings of Olmert discussing the original trial with Zaken emerged.
Zaken had refused to testify in the first trial, which also excluded presentation of a key journal of evidence of hers against Olmert. She did not reveal the existence of the recordings until the appeal to the Supreme Court.
Most have attributed Olmert’s conviction in the retrial to Zaken’s turning against him after one of his lawyers called her corrupt and she appeared headed for a long prison sentence in the Holyland case, absent a deal with the state.