Man Who Defrauded Elderly Woman Loses Inheritance Case
Translated & summarized from Bizportal by baba
A Tel Aviv Family Court judge ordered a man who defrauded an elderly woman out of hundreds of thousands of shekels to pay her husband 250,000 shekels. The judge also referred the case to the police for potential criminal charges. The man had convinced the woman to leave him her entire estate, disinheriting her husband of 42 years, through manipulation and deceit. The court invalidated the will, ruling the husband will inherit the estate.
The story in 5 lines · by baba
- Man ordered to pay 250,000 shekels to husband of woman he defrauded.
- Judge referred case to police, citing potential criminal charges and imprisonment.
- Man defrauded woman of hundreds of thousands of shekels and convinced her to change her will.
- The court found the man's testimony unreliable and his actions manipulative.
- The woman's husband of 42 years will inherit her estate instead of the man.
A man who defrauded an elderly woman out of hundreds of thousands of shekels and convinced her to bequeath him her entire estate has been ordered to pay her husband 250,000 shekels. The Tel Aviv Family Court judge, Esther Zhitnitsky-Rakover, also referred the case to the police, a rare move, suggesting the man could face criminal charges and imprisonment. The deceased, born in 1954, was married for decades without children. In her 60s, she met the man, born in 1969, whose mother and sister worked at a nursing home where the woman's mother was a resident. The man's mother convinced the couple to take in her two children, one as a caregiver and the other as a handyman.
According to the husband's testimony, which the judge found credible, the man performed renovation work valued at 150,000 shekels but defrauded the couple of 500,000 shekels. As the wife's health declined, the man grew closer to her. She confided in her psychiatrist about a sexual relationship with him, which he denied, claiming she saw him as a son she never had.
Between 2014 and 2021, the man took the woman to the bank, where she withdrew significant sums for him, leaving her account overdrawn by 120,000 shekels. He allegedly stole gold coins worth 360,000 shekels, purchased a Lexus for 300,000 shekels, sold two of their apartments for 2.9 million shekels (likely stealing the proceeds), and bought a caravan for 100,000 shekels.
Judge Zhitnitsky-Rakover described the man's testimony as evasive and unreliable, contrasting it with the husband's credible account. It was revealed the man was a compulsive gambler who had been in bankruptcy proceedings since 2015. In September 2015, the woman signed a will leaving her entire estate to the man, explicitly disinheriting her husband of 42 years, stating he would receive nothing and have no right to live in their apartment.
The judge noted that the attorney who drafted the will initially resisted testifying and gave a biased account. The fact that the woman disinherited her husband of 42 years was a sign of the man's undue influence. The court concluded that the man and his family devised a scheme to take control of the couple's assets during their lives and inherit them after death. The man exploited the couple's trust and the woman's emotional dependence, creating a false impression of a romantic and intimate relationship through manipulative, sexual, and intimate tactics to convince her to leave him her entire estate.
