posted by admin on Mar 15
Prof. Kremnitzer: “Perry’s conviction - faulty understanding on the part of the court”
Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer harshly criticizes the verdict in the German Pension case, for which Perry was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Kremnitzer accuses the court of “creating evidence,” and interpreting “looks of hatred.”
A surprising figure came to the defense yesterday of the most infamous man in the Israeli media, Attorney Israel Perry, who has been called an “exploiter of Holocaust survivors.” Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer joined Perry’s defense team with an expert opinion that the verdict convicting Israel Perry “has serious flaws.” Kremnitzer’s opinion relates to the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court sentence, handed down yesterday (Tuesday, February 19, 2008), sending attorney Israel Perry to prison for 12 years. Perry, who was convicted over two months ago of stealing millions from Holocaust survivors, headed the Organization for the Implementation of the Social Security Treaty, which dealt with the acquisition of pension rights from West Germany. The theft was perpetrated via granting loans and charging life insurance premiums, without actually taking out insurance. At the end of the trial, which lasted six years, the court ruled that Israel Perry Attorney had used this means to steal 320 million deutsche marks. Perry was also convicted of fraud, of suborning a witness and obstructing the course of justice.
During the reading of the sentence, Judge Zecharia Caspi leveled harsh criticism at Israel Perry’s behavior over the years, saying that he did not act with integrity, “to put it mildly” and hurt others. He likewise used “fraudulent means and convoluted methods.”
Emotional interpretation of witnesses
In the opinion being published by Prof. Kremnitzer levels harsh criticism at the District Court’s verdict, stating that it has “serious flaws, both in establishing the facts, and in the legal analysis.”
Among other things, Kremnitzer contends that the court misunderstood the commercial-economic aspect of Perry’s activities and dealt with the interpretation of the witnesses’ emotions, even when they were not even called to testify. “In presenting itself as reading the innermost feelings of people who were not even witnesses in the trial, the court turned itself into a manufacturer of evidence against the accused, evidence that was nothing but gut feelings.”
Kremnitzer further claims that the court gave excessive weight to testimony of witnesses who were “contentious and hostile” to Israel Perry Attorney and even relied on “looks of hatred aimed at Israel Perry,” interpreting them without even calling upon them to testify. On the other hand, the court did not attribute any importance to “the prosecution’s failure to examine witnesses apart from its own,” to “their awareness of the issue of the insurance, without which it would be impossible to view them as having deposited ‘property’ with the organization.” Kremnitzer accuses the court of becoming an “evidence provider,” and an “expert in the innermost understandings of the clients and the effect of the insurance issue on them.” In this context he quotes from the verdict, in which the judge wrote, “there is no need for a lengthy explanation into the tremendous psychological effect inherent in the mention of the name of an insurance company.”
Erred in understanding the law
Kremnitzer contends that the court adopted the prosecution’s legal arguments while “rejecting the defense’s arguments without in-depth deliberation and in while erring in its understanding of the law.” Among other things, the entrapment version of events, which is “irrelevant” to the fraud conviction, was joined to the conviction. This entrapment refers to the version that “the organization entrapped its clients in the loan deal by demanding that they pay the legal fees to the lawyer upon receipt of the decision concerning their eligibility for a pension.” Kremnitzer argues that “there is no connection between the clients’ possible distress due to this demand, to which they committed in advance, and the misrepresentation and the criminal fraud offense.” He contends that the joinder of “entrapment” to the fraud offense attests to “the weakness of the factual basis for the fraud conviction.”
Kremnitzer says that Israel Perry Attorney’s conviction of theft is also in the realm of a “conjurer’s trick,” as “how could theft be possible, particularly the type of theft in question - by a bailee - from about 9,000 ‘victims,’ without the Prosecution’s being able to bring even one witness to testify to this? “
Joining the defense team
Kremnitzer contends that the general impression evident from the verdict is “that the court itself had difficulty coping with the complexity of the agreements, and also - and perhaps nonetheless - saw this as an expression of unfairness on the part of the organization. The court had difficulty understanding the commercial-economic aspects of the contracts, and in adhering to the relevant facts for the purpose of the criminal charges, and was influenced by external irrelevant data, such as the ideas that the organization profited excessively or that the matter of the insurance was misrepresented - in the absence of which there could be no crime of fraudulent receipt of property.”
As noted, Prof. Kremnitzer, who claims throughout the court’s verdict has “serious flaws,” has joined attorney Israel Perry’s defense team.