Former Yukom Trader Yair Hadar Sentenced to 8 Months in Prison

Another former binary options trader connected with the Israeli Yukom Communications $145 million binary options investment scam, has been reportedly sentenced to prison. On Monday, a United States District Judge sentenced Yair Hadar to eight months in prison.

Hadar was among the former employees of Yukom Communications to sign a plea deal with US judicial authorities. According to a report by Law360, US District Judge Theodore D. Chuang gave Hadar his prison sentence yesterday for his role in a scheme that tricked investors into funneling cash into binary options.

During the trial, both Hadar and his attorneys asked for leniency with his sentence, giving his family’s financial hardships and his stated remorse for his role in the binary options scam as reasons for this.

Nonetheless, Judge Chuang still slapped Hadar with an eight-month sentence. However, according to the news outlet, the Judge did highlight that this sentence is considerably lower than the three to four years that he could have been facing.

"I wish you could have seen what this has done to the victims," Law360 reported Judge Chuang as saying. "In some ways, stealing from an office is worse than stealing from someone on the street."

Yukom Communications employees continue to be sentenced

Hadar’s sentence comes just days after Liora Welles, a former sales agent for Yukom Communications, was sentenced to 14 months in prison. As Finance Magnates reported, Welles also had a plea deal with US prosecutors, which saw her testify against the former CEO of the company Lee Elbaz.

When US District Judge Theodore D. Chuang readout Welles’ sentence, she reportedly burst into tears. This could be because she was expecting a smaller sentence due to her testifying against Elbaz.

However, the US judge went on to say that Welles had been one of the most successful sales agents for the binary options scam and that she had gone above and beyond the duties of a regular sales agent. According to the report, Welles created the sales scripts for other employees to use.

According to Law360, altogether, Welles personally duped investors out of $2.2 million. She has been ordered to pay that money back in addition to her 14 months prison sentence.