In a landmark ruling, an Australian court on Thursday sentenced former ultra-Orthodox Jewish school principal Malka Leifer to 15 years in prison for sexually abusing two teenage girls between 2004 and 2007.
Overwhelming evidence provided by Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper, minors at the time of the abuse, was enough to convince Judge Mark Gamble to impose the lengthy sentence and officially recognize the “extreme impact” sexual abuse has on victims.
“Today’s 15-year sentence recognizes the harm and pain Malka Leifer caused each of us to suffer for so many years,” Sapper said outside court.
The charges against Leifer, 56, included five counts of rape and multiple counts of indecent assault. The jury found her not guilty on nine charges, including those related to a third teenager who also studied at Melbourne’s Adass Israel school, which Leifer ran.
In 2008, after the first allegations of abuse came to light, Leifer fled to Israel. In 2012, a comprehensive international arrest warrant was issued and Australia requested his extradition to the Hebrew country. Leifer was placed under house arrest in 2016 after a judicial psychiatrist ruled that she was unfit to stand trial due to mental illness.
However, it was not until a year later when private investigators proved that Leifer was living a normal life in Jerusalem, and a second psychiatric review panel determined that she had been faking a mental illness, allowing the extradition battle to resume. In January 2021, Leifer was finally returned to Australia, setting the stage for her sentencing today.
The gravity of the outcome of this sentence is not lost on the victims, who are grateful for the “recognition and validation” they have received. “Today’s decision marks the end of this chapter of our lives and opens the chapter of our healing,” Erlich stated. Ultimately, justice prevailed for these two teenage victims, sending a powerful signal to all survivors of sexual abuse that they are “never alone.”
With information from Infobae