Lying to get sex? We'd all be in jail.
from www.salon.com - If you thought you'd heard the last of Israel's rape by fraud case, you were wrong. The Arab man sentenced to 18 months in prison for lying to get sex has appealed his sentence with the Israeli Supreme Court, according to reports today.
As I reported last week, Sabbar Kashur met a Jewish woman in downtown Jerusalem and tricked her into thinking he was also a Jew and interested in a long-term relationship. The two immediately stole away to a nearby office building for an illicit tryst. When the woman found out about his lies, she claimed rape; in a plea deal, Kashur was charged with rape by deception.
The case captured international attention, largely due to outrage over the patent absurdity of sentencing a man to jail for a year and a half for doing something fairly commonplace: lying to get sex. Clearly, Kashur agrees. His lawyer argues that an appropriate sentence might have been the time Kashur has already served: 55 days in prison and two years of house arrest. If you ask me, even that seems an excessive punishment -- but now it's up to the Israeli Supreme Court to decide.
Earlier story: In Jerusalem, lying your way into a woman's bed can get you in big trouble. A court has convicted an Arab man of "rape by deception" and sentenced him to 18 months in prison after he posed as a Jew in order to have sex with a Jewish woman.
The details of the case are vague and bizarre: After a chance meeting, in which 30-year-old Sabbar Kashur introduced himself as "Daniel," apparently as a way of tricking the woman into thinking he was Jewish, the pair stole away to a nearby office building and had sex. He left before she could even get dressed (which, you know, violates common decency but not any actual laws), but after the fact she somehow discovered that he wasn't Jewish. (Cue the politically incorrect jokes.)
In the final ruling, Jerusalem District Court Judge Tzvi Segal wrote: "If she hadn't thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have cooperated."
