Zeev Rosenstein
Zeev Rosenstein | |
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 Ze'ev Rosenstein, escorted by Israeli Police officers, on his way from Israel to trial in the USA | |
Zeev Rosenstein (Hebrew: זאב רוזנשטיין; born 1954) is an infamous Israeli Ecstasy dealer. With the exception of a robbery conviction in the 1970s, Israeli police had never been able to indict Rosenstein.
In November 2004, after 700,000 ecstasy tablets were seized in a Manhattan apartment, he was charged with distributing Ecstasy in the United States in a joint effort of U.S. Department of Justice and Israeli Ministry of Justice.
After exhausting his legal options in Israel, a precedent-setting decision by the Supreme Court of Israel [1], Rosenstein was extradited to the U.S. on March 6, 2006, making him one of very few Israelis to ever be extradited for prosecution in another country.
Rosenstein pleaded not guilty in U.S. court to the distribution of ecstasy and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. According to the extradition treaty between Israel and the U.S., he would serve his U.S.-imposed sentence in an Israeli prison and be eligible for parole in five years and four months.