The handball coach who shocked the authorities: "The 9-year-old couldn't speak. Crying, crying and crying"

"This girl, who cried throughout the entire investigation and couldn't get a word out, the nine-year-old, it was sad to see it, because the investigations are on video, so when I watched them, it was very sad." When Shiri Marom, Deputy Director of the Cyber Department at the State Attorney's Office, is asked what remains with her from the case of handball coach Ben Reinhorn, she returns to that girl. Not to the hundreds of correspondences, not to the technological camouflage system, and not to the 14-year prison sentence that was eventually handed down. She remembers a nine-year-old girl who sat in front of a child investigator and couldn't speak. Perhaps this moment explains the affair better than any charge sheet.

That girl did not meet the sex offender in person. He did not harm her in an alley, and she did not get into a stranger's car. She was sure she was corresponding with a woman—a modeling agent. The world presented to her was a world of auditions, photo shoots, and a chance to become famous. Only later did it turn out that behind the screen sat a man who never had to enter her room to harm her.

Marom arrived at the Cyber Department at the beginning of 2018, after 17 years in the Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office. Shortly thereafter, she was asked to accompany an investigation that began at the 105 center. "Ben's case, it's a very complex case," she says. "It is one of the most serious cases that have been in sex crimes online since I've been here in the Cyber Department."