Man sentenced to 6.5 years prison for rape of girl in coronavirus hotel

Yarin Sharaf was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison for the rape of a 13-year-old girl during quarantine in a coronavirus hotel in 2021, the Tel Aviv District Court ruled on Tuesday.

The then-21-year-old rapist will also be required to pay NIS 30,000 in compensation to the girl he met when they both contracted COVID-19 and were sent by the government to the Tel Aviv facility.

Sharaf looked up the girl on Tik Tok after meeting her at the hotel, and began to aggressively propositioned her, despite her repeatedly rejecting him and her misgivings about the age gap. He pressured and manipulated her into meeting him several times, which included plying her with alcohol.

The rapist was eventually allowed to enter her room to talk, where he touched her inappropriately. When she refused his demands to perform oral sex he slapped her. She ejected him from the room, but later allowed him back in to talk. He stripped her of clothes and raped her while holding her by her neck.

The girl was estranged from her family, and had been at a boarding school until her infection with coronavirus. Sharaf had a troubled past as a youth, and was involved in crime and drugs. He expressed remorse for the crime, but the prosecution noted that the extreme age difference and physical abuse could not be ignored. The girl, who was isolated without family and ill during the assault, later suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel said that 6.5 years in prison did not reflect the seriousness of the offense, thought the rapist would carry the mark of being a sex offender for the rest of his life. 

"Sharaf took advantage of the situation in which the minor who was locked up with him in the hotel, without a responsible adult who could protect her and without the ability stop the harm," said ARCCI director Orit Soliciano. "All of me hopes that since the event she [the victim] is receiving assistance to recover from the difficult incident she went through."

Soliciano said that the protests of ARCCI and other organizations resulted in a rape charge, and not a statutory charge.