Complainant asked to 'let president touch you'
Supreme Court lifts gag order on petitions against plea bargain signed with former President Moshe Katsav. One of complainants says in her petition that Katsav's close friend asked her to 'be the president's lover'
The Supreme Court on Thursday lifted the gag order on former President Moshe Katsav's investigation be, following complainants' petitions against Katsav's plea bargain.
One of the complainants said in her petition that a close friend of the president by the name of Uri Yoeli approached her in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and asked here to trade places with another employee at the president's office who received many benefits such as trips abroad and promotions in return for having out relations with the president.
"At the end of the conversation the petitioner asked Mr. Yoeli: 'What do you want from me?' Yoeli answered: 'I want you to be the president's lover. Once in a while let him kiss you, touch you, and things will progress on their own from there,'" the complainant's petition read.
"Katsav used to invite the complainant over under false, meaningless pretences such as: 'Get me white paper to write on' and he would take advantage of being alone with her in his room to ask sexual questions such as: 'Do you have a boyfriend?', 'Who was your last boyfriend?', 'Do you have sex, and where?', 'What are your sexual preferences?' He made sexual comments such as 'I'm jealous of the man who gets to have you', 'I am in love with you' and 'I want to sleep with you'."
The petition continued: "One morning, as usual, the president asked the petitioner into his room. The petitioner stood before him with the desk between the two. The president looked into the petitioner's eyes and told her that she amazed him, that she was sexy, and he touched her breast with his hand.
"The petitioner pushed him off of her instinctively and ran to the office's door; the president beat her to it, leaned on the door and prevented her exit. The petitioner began to cry and felt that this was very severe deterioration and worsening of work relations. In light of the petitioner's reaction the president apologized and promised he would not repeat his acts and the petitioner left the office."
'Plea bargain unreasonable to the most extreme degree'
The complainant claimed that after being absent from work, the president threatened her, saying that he would "make her life miserable" if she did not come back to work. He also asked her to keep his behavior a secret, saying "You don't say anything and I won't say anything."
According to the petitioner, "there were times when the president placed his hand on his penis while he was dressed and told the petitioner that she gave him an erection."
"At one time when the petitioner entered the president's office to return a book to the library, the president pushed himself against the petitioner from behind, tightly grasped her body from behind and held her hands and demanded she have sex with him. The president was simply in a craze. The petitioner began to cry and asked him stop.
"When the president released his grip for a moment the petitioner sat down on a nearby chair, terrified, and the president suddenly picked her up from the chair, opened his pants and penetrated her body without her consent. The petitioner felt paralyzed all over her body and feared for her life due to the abovementioned threat. At the end of the sexual contact, the president got dressed; the petitioner wiped the tears from her eyes, took her purse and left the president's residence."
In the beginning of the petition, the complainant wrote in response to the plea bargain that "the petitioner, who is aware of the facts from her own knowledge and personal experience, cannot accept this argument after being questioned for hundreds of hours, days upon days, after successfully passing the polygraph, after waiving medical confidentiality and after revealing all her personal secrets to the police detectives and the State Prosecutor's team and especially after the attorney general publicly announced through the electronic and written media that Katsav's deeds with the petitioner and other complainants were of the harshest sexual offenses."
In her petition, the complainant quoted Attorney General Menachem Mazuz as saying, "The material that has amounted in President Katsav's investigation is very serious," and calling him a "serial sex offender for some 20 years."
The petitioner argued that "Mazuz's decision not to prosecute Katsav for offenses of a sexual nature that he committed and for making threats is unreasonable to the most extreme degree."
