Actor Dan Turgeman Sentenced to 10 Months in Prison for Tax Offenses

Actor Dan Turgeman will serve 10 months in actual prison after the District Court overturned a previous ruling that had sentenced him to community service for tax offenses. Turgeman had been convicted based on his own admission for tax evasion committed between 2007 and 2012. The original conviction and sentencing occurred over a decade after the offenses were committed, with the initial ruling in the Magistrate's Court citing significant delays and "judicial suffering" as reasons to deviate from standard sentencing, resulting in a sentence of nine months of community service instead of actual prison time.

The State appealed the lenient sentence, arguing that Turgeman's actions constituted a systematic and ongoing pattern of tax offenses on a large scale, involving active concealment of income and evasion of taxes. The District Court accepted the appeal, emphasizing that tax offenses committed with intent to evade taxes necessitate actual prison sentences, regardless of the time elapsed since the crimes. The court reduced Turgeman's fine from NIS 100,000 to NIS 50,000 but increased his prison sentence to 10 months, noting that even this sentence did not fully reflect the severity of the crimes.

Turgeman was initially arrested in May 2018 on suspicion of evading over NIS 3 million in income. He was involved in land marketing, real estate development, and film production, holding stakes in companies like T.D.A. Productions Ltd. and Kinneret Spa Hotel Ltd. The charges detailed his failure to report income from real estate ventures and apartment rentals, as well as the improper registration of a property to avoid capital gains tax. The prosecution had initially sought 15 months of actual prison time.