An Israeli teenager on leave from the army was fined nearly $1,000 for a kidnapping prank that backfired. Ariel Lourie, 19, who was visiting his mother in Melbourne in September, pretended to be a kidnapper when he took a 6-year-old boy from a suburban park in a Jewish neighborhood. On Tuesday he pleaded guilty to unlawful assault in Melbourne Magistrates Court. A charge of child stealing was dismissed. Lourie told the court he was “just joking” and apologized in writing to the family.
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