Decision to determine whether 8 months will be added to former prime minister Olmert’s jail time.
The Supreme Court has announced that it will render its verdict in former prime minister Ehud Olmert’s Talansky retrial on Wednesday morning.
Based on what the Supreme Court decides in the Talansky retrial, also known as the Jerusalem corruption trial, will decide whether he only serves the 19 month jail sentence which he started in February, or whether up to another eight months get added on, bringing the total to 27 months.
In May 2015, the Jerusalem District Court sentenced Olmert to eight months in prison following his conviction in the Talansky Affair retrial, one of three affairs he was accused of in the Jerusalem corruption trial.
The Talansky Affair consisted of Olmert illegally receiving, using and concealing at least $153,950 (out 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 already became the first prime minister in the country’s history to be locked behind bars after the Supreme Court sentenced him to 18 months (down from six years at the District Court level) in prison for bribery in the Tel Aviv District Court Holyland real estate trial.
He was also sentenced to an additional month of prison as part of a plea bargain in the Shula Zaken tapes saga in which he tried to obstruct the various cases against him along with Zaken, his former top aide.
There is even a very outside shot that on top of the 19 months and 8 months that another 6 months could be added on for an earlier July 2012 conviction in the Investment Affair. But that is highly unlikely as he was already given community service for that conviction and the Supreme Court justices did not appear excited by the idea at 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 more minor Investment Affair.
The Rishon Tours Affair allegations had accused Olmert of double-billing organizations for reimbursements for international flights, while the Investment Affair related to the granting of favors in his capacity as a minister to his confidante Uri Messer despite a conflict of interest.
The Talansky Affair retrial came out of the state’s appeal of Olmert’s July 2012 acquittal to the Supreme Court, with the Supreme Court sending the case back to the district court for a retrial in summer 2014.
The Supreme Court’s order for a retrial came 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 a key journal of evidence of hers against Olmert from being presented and did not let on about the existence of the recordings until the appeal to the Supreme Court.
Most have attributed Olmert’s conviction in the retrial to Zaken’s switching sides and turning against Olmert 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.
As reported by The Jerusalem Post