Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a request from a Russian immigrant businessman and alleged organized crime head to reduce his six-year prison sentence. Gregory Lerner was sentenced to prison and fined $1.25 million in a plea bargain in which he admitted to defrauding Russian banks of $50 million, damaging the Israeli banking system and committing forgery and bribery. Lerner, who has served more than two years of his sentence, had asked that his sentence be commuted to a suspended sentence and that the fine be canceled.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.