The State Attorney's Office has filed an indictment in Jerusalem Magistrate's Court against Bracha Rotman, 48, of Jerusalem, charging her with orchestrating a sweeping fraud scheme that allegedly netted approximately 9.3 million shekels (roughly $2.5 million) in fraudulent disability payments from National Insurance.
According to the indictment filed by attorney Ronit Shantzer Yaakovi of the Jerusalem District Attorney's Office, Rotman conspired with additional parties to carry out systematic, organized fraud operations targeting the country's disability benefit system.
The scheme began with notices posted in various locations around the country offering assistance in claiming benefits from National Insurance. Parents who responded to the advertisements provided personal details and documents about their children after being told they could receive help obtaining child disability benefits for hearing impairments.
Rotman and her co-conspirators then used the information and documents collected from these families to file false claims with National Insurance.
The fraudulent applications included forged hearing tests based on documents related to Rotman's own children, with identifying details and hearing-level data altered to match the other families' children. The claims falsely stated that the children suffered from hearing impairments qualifying them for benefits and that they used hearing aids.
After submitting the claims, Rotman would repeatedly call National Insurance, impersonating the children's parents to inquire whether documents had been received and to check on the status of the applications.
Based on the false representations, National Insurance approved the claims and paid benefits to the families, sometimes retroactively and spanning multiple years. Rotman and her associates collected fees from the families for handling their claims.
The first three counts in the indictment concern claims Rotman filed for three of her own children. In one case, forged hearing tests were attached to the application, resulting in National Insurance paying out 206,992 shekels.
In two additional cases involving her children, claims were filed even though, according to the indictment, the children suffered only minimal hearing impairment that did not qualify for benefits. Those claims resulted in payments of 290,588 shekels and 323,203 shekels respectively. In total, National Insurance paid more than 820,000 shekels for claims related to Rotman's three children.
The remaining counts describe fraudulent claims filed for children from various families in Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh, Modiin Illit, Beitar Illit, and Tzfat. The amounts received in individual cases ranged from tens of thousands of shekels to more than 600,000 shekels. Altogether, the scheme extracted 9,279,399 shekels from National Insurance.
Attorney Ronit Shantzer Yaakovi of the Jerusalem District Attorney's Office stated: "The benefits system relies on trust, so that children with disabilities and their families can receive the assistance they deserve. Exploiting that trust through forgery and impersonation is not only an assault on the public purse, but risks making things harder precisely for those who truly need the system. Fraud involving benefit funds is not a victimless crime --- its price is paid by the public and by the eligible recipients themselves. National Insurance, which initiated the investigation, viewed this fraud with great severity, and indeed the indictment filed reflects the seriousness with which the prosecution views systematic acts that harm funds intended to secure the rights of those who need assistance, and will work to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law."
The investigation was conducted by investigators from National Insurance's Jerusalem branch, with assistance from the intelligence unit at the Investigations Division headquarters, in a joint operation with the Crime Fighting Unit of the Zion District in the Jerusalem area.
The indictment includes 31 counts and charges Rotman with multiple offenses of obtaining property by fraud under aggravated circumstances, forging documents with intent to obtain property under aggravated circumstances, and using forged documents with intent to obtain property.
