AP Picture/Ariel Schalit
A snake charmer who earned two doctorate levels whereas serving a jail time period for the heinous homicide of his reptile-trading associate might quickly change into a millionaire because of his tech firm—if Israel will let him.
Harel Hershtik was an uneducated 14-year-old making an attempt to take care of the bodily and emotional abuse of his childhood in a zoo remedy class when he met his sufferer, Yaakov Sela, a venomous snake dealer.
Sela had a following of youngsters like Hershtik who noticed a possibility within the reptilian world. The snake handler noticed one thing particular in Hershtik and shortly latched on to his younger protege, instructing him how you can work with and even cross-breed the reptiles, a few of which aren’t even authorized in Israel. He additionally latched onto Hershtik’s mom, Rina Hershtik, with whom he had a romantic relationship.
However, as Hershtik tells it, the connection turned manipulative and even abusive; and in an act of revenge, Hershtik stole round $15,000 from him. In court docket, Hershtik mentioned he had “an issue seeing him speaking to girls in demeaning methods, particularly towards somebody that I cared about and cherished.”
When he came upon in regards to the stolen cash, Sela mentioned he wouldn’t go to the cops if Hershtik paid him again—at a charge of one hundred pc curiosity. As an alternative, Hershtik shot him within the head and buried his physique. Hershtik was simply 20 years previous.
In an intensive interview with the Related Press, the assassin—now on parole with an digital ankle bracelet—says he desires to be forgiven. He's vice chairman of technique and know-how at Scentech Medical—which focuses on a medical system that the corporate says can detect illness by way of a breath check—that he based in jail in 2018. However some say he shouldn't be allowed to rehabilitate utterly, and that a few of his fortune ought to go to the state and to his sufferer’s household.
He disagrees.
“Once I was younger, I might say that I used to be silly and conceited,” the 46-year-old informed the AP. “You is usually a genius and but nonetheless be very silly and the 2 don’t contradict one another.”
Hershtik’s crime was found in Could 1996 when a bunch of youngsters discovered Sela’s hand in some gravel within the Golan Heights. Authorities instantly recognized Sela who had been reported lacking a month earlier.
Hershtik, whose mom referred to as him a “pathological liar” within the wake of the scandal, was in the end convicted of homicide, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit homicide, theft, fraud, forgery and false impersonation. He was sentenced to life in jail, which in Israel is a 30-year sentence. He might be utterly free in Could 2026.
He informed the AP that whereas in jail he traded his love of snakes for chemistry and arithmetic, incomes doctorate levels in each. He additionally married thrice, assembly his first spouse by way of jail visits, his second spouse by way of an commercial in a girls’s journal, and his third in a web based chat room. He's divorced from all three and has no kids because of the clearly troublesome impediment of his incarceration.
His jail file is sketchy, having been in isolation after organising web to his cell and telling the AP he was stabbed by two Arab inmates after “hypothetically” suggesting Jewish nationalist inmates ought to catapult a severed hog’s head with a Quran in its mouth into the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
He says he additionally started 31 corporations, of which he bought six, whereas behind bars. He now desires to take Scentech Medical public by way of a merger with NextGen Biomed. The merger, which nonetheless wants regulatory approval, values the corporate at $250 million, in line with the AP.
As his profitable firm edges in the direction of going public, the previous snake charmer informed the AP that he hoped traders wouldn’t be afraid of his intensive rap sheet, and that he demoted himself in hopes of profitable over those that could be skeptical.
However he additionally informed the wire service that the explanation he must be forgiven is as a result of he fashioned his firm to provide one thing again to society, to depart the world a greater place.
“Belief me,” he informed the AP. “This isn't for the cash.”