Former MK, Liberman Associate Sentenced to 10 Years for Elaborate Scam

Faina Kirshenbaum, a former deputy Interior Minister and Member of Knesset for the Yisrael Beitenu party, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court on Wednesday for her involvement in an elaborate scam that included bribery, breach of trust, money laundering, and tax offenses.

She was also sentenced to a NIS 900,000 fine. The time she has already spent behind bars will be subtracted from the 10-year sentence.

Kirshenbaum, the party’s former secretary-general, was convicted along with 17 other people in the case for allegedly taking kickbacks in exchange for securing illegal funding for NGOs.

Kirshenbaum and other Yisrael Beitenu officials provided funding it was entitled to hand out through coalition agreements to NGOs and public institutions in exchange for kickbacks in the form of support for Yisrael Beitenu institutions or their own private businesses and family members.

Judge Yaron Levy wrote in the verdict that Kirshenbaum “systematically took bribes in a cunning and sophisticated manner for six years. She fatally harmed the associations and businesses from which she took bribes, harmed the public.”

Kirshenbaum and several other officials who were convicted in the case were members of Minister of Finance Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party. He managed to emerge unscathed from the scandal.