The Money Held in Trust: Four Years in Prison for Lawyer Alex Shoud, Who Took Millions From His Clients

How it worked for five years

A fraud that lasts five months is usually exposed when somebody asks a question. A fraud that lasts five years needs something else: a mechanism that keeps the question from being asked.

According to reports on the sentence, that mechanism was paperwork. When a client wanted to know what was happening, he was given a document. It looked like a confirmation, it was written in legal Hebrew, and it created the impression that the transaction was proceeding properly and that the money was in the right place. A client holding such a document does not go and check the Land Registry. He waits.

During that wait, according to the indictment he admitted, the money was no longer there. Part of it went to the lawyer himself, and part went to settling obligations towards other clients. The pattern is a familiar one: as long as new money keeps arriving, an older client who starts pressing can be reassured.

Prosecutor Tzlil Zanti of the Southern District Attorney's Office told the court that the defendant committed the offences while serving as the complainants' lawyer, and added that this was not only economic harm:

"This is not merely economic harm but a trampling of basic trust."

Who the victims were

According to the reports, the victims included elderly people, sick people, new immigrants who do not command Hebrew, people without legal knowledge, and acquaintances of the lawyer. One local Ashdod outlet described the case of an 80 year old Ashdod resident who, according to her grandson, lost all of her savings.

That detail is not decoration. It is the heart of the matter. A person who does not read Hebrew cannot check the document placed in front of them. A forged confirmation in Hebrew looks to them exactly like a genuine one. Their ability to know what is happening to their money rests entirely on one person, and that is precisely the person who took it.

This is also why this article is published in Russian, Arabic, French and Hebrew as well. The people most exposed in this affair are exactly the people who will not read about it in Hebrew.

What the court decided

Shoud pleaded guilty and was convicted under a plea agreement at the Beersheba District Court, in criminal case 5269-02-25 according to the reports. The offences attributed to him total 69.

Theft by an agent is the offence that explains this case better than any of the others. It covers a person who received property in order to hold it for someone else, and took it for himself. This is not someone who broke into the safe. It is someone who was handed the key.

The figures in the reports are not consistent. Most outlets give around 3.4 million shekels taken from clients. A TheMarker headline gives 2.2 million. The same 2.2 million appears in some reports as the compensation figure under the agreement. The full judgment was not obtained for this article, so the exact figure is not verified here.

Compensation: two apartments

The plea agreement was not limited to the sentence. According to the reports it also included a repayment mechanism: two apartments owned by Shoud are to be sold, and the proceeds, after existing debts are covered, are to go to the victims.

Judge Benny Sagi addressed this himself. According to the reports he noted that at first glance, given the sums and the systematic conduct, the sentence might look lenient, but that it is the agreement that produces a real return of money to the victims:

"The working assumption that without the plea agreement the victims would have been left with nothing."

This recurs in fraud cases involving professionals. A criminal sentence does not return the money. What returns money is an asset that can be realised. Where there is no such asset, the victims are left with a judgment and nothing else.

Suspended until 2045

The criminal proceeding and the disciplinary proceeding are two separate tracks. The prison term is imposed by the court. The right to practise law is determined by the Israel Bar Association, in its own disciplinary tribunals.

According to a report on the LawBuzz site relying on Bar Association data, the district disciplinary tribunal of the Southern District, in case 006/2023, suspended lawyer Alex Shoud, licence number 60776, of Ashdod, for ten years and three months: from 20 March 2025 until 19 June 2035.

These details also appear in the list of suspended lawyers published by the Israel Bar Association, as checked on 21 October 2026. The same list shows a further suspension: on 19 August 2026 the Southern District disciplinary tribunal, in case 008/2023, imposed another ten years of suspension, cumulative to any existing suspension. It runs from 20 June 2035 until 19 June 2045. According to the list, his suspension is therefore continuous from 20 March 2025 until 19 June 2045.

During the suspension he may not perform acts that the Bar Association Law reserves to lawyers, including representation in court, drafting legal documents and giving legal advice.

Suspension is not removal from the Bar. It runs for a fixed period, and at the end of it the name may reappear in the register as an active lawyer. That is exactly why checking a name in the register, without checking the history, is not enough.

Trust money: how it should work

When a client transfers money to a lawyer as part of a transaction, the money does not become the lawyer's money. It is held for the client, for the purpose for which it was given. These are the steps that reduce the risk, before a single shekel moves:

1. A dedicated trust account. Require that the transaction funds be held in a trust account opened for that transaction, not in the lawyer's private or business account. Ask for the account details in writing.
2. Confirmation of every movement. For every deposit and every transfer, ask for written confirmation. Not a verbal update, not "I sent it".
3. Verify with the issuer, not with the document. A Land Registry extract, a Tax Authority confirmation, a bank confirmation. All of these can be obtained directly from the body that issues them. A document the lawyer shows you is a document the lawyer shows you.
4. If you do not read Hebrew. Have an independent translator or a second lawyer go over the key papers. It is a small cost against the sum at stake.
5. "It is moving along, please wait." When that answer repeats without a document behind it, that is the moment to check directly with the relevant body. Not six months later.
6. Check the licence and the history. Search the name and licence number on the Israel Bar Association website and cross-check against the list of suspended lawyers.

Complaining about a lawyer

A complaint about professional conduct goes to the ethics committee of the Bar Association district in which the lawyer is registered. It is filed in writing, with the fee agreement, receipts, correspondence and supporting documents attached. There is no filing fee.

The ethics committee decides whether the person may continue to practise. It does not return money. Where money has gone missing, a police complaint should be filed in parallel, and an independent lawyer consulted about a civil claim. In this affair, what gave the victims a real chance of recovering part of their money was the criminal process and the agreement under which the apartments are to be sold.

Timeline

What is not verified

The full judgment was not obtained for this article. Everything here rests on reports in the Israeli media from the day of the sentence and afterwards, listed in the sources. When the full judgment is located it will be added to the document library on this site and the article updated.

Not verified: the exact sum taken, given the discrepancy between reports; the final compensation figure; the total number of victims; and whether an appeal was filed. The suspension details rest on the Bar Association's notices in its list of suspended lawyers, as checked on 21.10.2026, and on the LawBuzz report, not on the disciplinary tribunal's own decisions, which were not obtained.

The names of the victims are not published here.