Israeli Nimrod Shalom, a 41-year-old owner of a start-up company and a new immigrant from the United States who previously lived in Ramat Gan, was sentenced last week in the US to seven years in prison, following a pedophilia charge from 2016.
He was arrested in Israel for the same incident - and was released. But, in July 2021, he arrived on a flight from Ben-Gurion Airport to Los Angeles and was arrested by US authorities. Since then, he has been kept behind bars in harsh conditions.
Last year, in federal court, he confessed to the crimes he committed six years earlier in Israel, and last week, the sentence was handed down.
What happened?
The incident that he was convicted of occurred on August 1, 2016, while he was in Israel when he contacted someone through the messaging app KIK who later turned out to be an American secret agent operating from Washington.
Shalom asked the person on the app if he had a daughter, how old she was and if he had "played" with her sexually. When the agent told him that he had a "nine-year-old girl," Shalom responded that he himself was "sexually active with his four-year-old daughter and sent the agent a picture of her."
Shalom even added that he is "not in the United States" and that where he lives, "nobody cares what you do."
He then sent the agent blatantly sexually repulsive photos of the girl he said was his "four-year-old daughter," and asked the man to also send him photos of his daughter, fully nude while giving him precise instructions as to what positions he meant.
He also asked him to let him know when his daughter was coming, so they could "play with her."
US authorities help Israel catch pedophile
US authorities claim that at the same time, he corresponded in a similar manner with an undercover agent operating out of Maine, passing on the same images to him.
US authorities reported the case to Israel, and the very next day, he was arrested by the investigators of the Lahav 433 Unit.
They found that Shalom has no children at all and the photos he sent were commercially produced.
According to US authorities, in the testimony obtained from him by the Israeli police, he admitted that he used the online application and pretended to be a father with access to the girl, in order to convince people to send him more pedophile materials.
An additional 23 images with pedophilic content were found on his cell phone, including those sent to the agent.
He was later brought before the vice president of the Rishon Lezion Magistrate's Court, who extended his detention. Shalom said that he was "confused by the situation" and that "it is not as serious as what you heard."
In 2017, Israel informed the US that it would not file an indictment against him, despite the suspicions against him, and his pedophile past, and the judge noted that a five-year suspended prison sentence is pending against him.
The American authorities did not give up, and in 2019, they filed an indictment against him in the US and requested his extradition. But the Israeli attorney's office didn't petition for extradition either and Shalom was arrested at the Los Angeles airport when he landed in the US last year, five years after the incident.
"The defendant's conduct was extremely serious," claimed the prosecution in the US. "The crime was committed against the most vulnerable in society - children.
"The children documented in the photos and videos that were held and shared by the defendant experienced trauma and were hurt in the most severe way imaginable during the creation of the photos and they are re-victimized and re-traumatized every time a person like a defendant views or shares the photos to satisfy his sexual urges."
During the trial, the pedophile history of Shalom, who grew up in California, studied music, directing and screenwriting, tried various ventures and moved to Israel, was also revealed.
In 2015, he was convicted in California and the police report there indicates that his girlfriend complained that he coaxed her into an "open family" relationship in which he sexually exploited her two-year-old daughter and somehow also obtained very explicit photos of her lower area.
During this investigation, the police officers also spoke with a previous girlfriend, who has a daughter who was seven years old at the time and she said that during their relationship, he asked her for a picture of her daughter and suggested that they participate in nude activities and have sex with her.
At that time, they searched him and found 437 photos and 37 films of the sexual exploitation of children as well as publications that instruct men on how to sexually exploit children without being discovered by the authorities, including "How to Manage Children's Love", "A Guide to a Pedophile" and more.
In addition to that, they found recommendations on how to locate single mothers with the aim of sexually exploiting their children. After his conviction, he was supposed to be supervised for five years, but he moved his residence to Israel, opened a startup for renting apartments and offices, and believed that Israel would serve as a refuge for him and thus continued his exploits.
"His conduct is both dangerous and obscene," the prosecution in the US claimed before his plea deal. "He didn't learn anything from his conviction and he didn't change from his behavior."
His sister told the court how she always had an older brother and how he taught her to play guitar and his father described him as a good son who helps.
However, the federal court was not impressed and sentenced him to a long prison term. He also ordered that at the end of his sentence, he will continue to be under the strict supervision imposed on sex offenders in the United States for ten years.