Polygamist cult leader Goel Ratzon sentenced to 30 years in prison

YNET  The Tel Aviv District Court sentenced polygamist Goel Ratzon on Tuesday to 30 years in prison for sex crimes against his wives and daughters as part of what prosecutors described as a mind-boggling saga of dominance and delusions of deity.

Last month, Ratzon, 64, was convicted of a number of sexual offences, including rape of a number of his wives. He was cleared, however, of separate counts of enslavement regarding 21 spouses and 38 children he had kept in various homes around the city. He was also found guilty on the majority of the other sexually related offenses, condemning him in the highly publicized trial as a serial rapist.[...]

In an interview he gave to Yedioth Ahronoth in 2010, the first since his arrest, Ratzon denied the charges against him and claimed his relations with the more than 30 women who lived with him were based on love and respect.

During the interview Ratzon said: "There was no slavery. We had warm relations. (There was) full understanding between us, a genuine desire to help one another. A woman does not stay in a place she is not pleased with for 15 years."