Senior Navy officer accused of sex offenses
Navy officer convicted of various sex offenses against multiple female soldiers; soldiers say he touched them against their will, made sexually inappropriate remarks
Lieutenant Colonel G. was convicted last week in military court for a long line of sex offenses perpetrated against two soldiers who served under his command in a base near Haifa.
The court convicted the senior officer in charges of indecent acts, sexual harassment, sabotaging investigation, obstruction of criminal proceedings and inappropriate behavior.
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Throughout his investigation and in the trial conducted over the past year, G. has denied all allegations against him, and said the two soldiers under his command plotted against him after he had revealed one of them was hired in order to discover illegal offenses at the base. Still, he admitted that he stayed with both of them for a long time in his office during a night on November 2011.
The Judges ruled his version was unreliable and incongruent with evidence. "The defendant didn’t come across as reliable," the verdict stated, "The lies he was caught telling before he became familiar with the evidence are lies that stand at the very core of the offenses of which he is accused."
According to the indictment, the two soldiers stayed in the Lieutenant Colonel's office from 8:00 pm to 1:00 am on the night in question, when the officer sat one of the soldiers on his knee, "held her face, and kissed her on her mouth. When she got up, the defendant grabbed her hand and sat her back down on his knees."
He then proceeded to touch her, though she repeatedly asked him to stop.
During the same evening, the defendant made sexual advances at the other soldier, including attempts at physical contact.
After one of the soldiers filed a complaint against the officer with the military police, the officer turned to her friend to keep her from testifying. "Please don't, I'm begging you, think about my children. Twenty five years in the army will go out the window," and in another, similar conversation, he expressed concern about his retirement.
Testimonies further pointed to several other incidents in which the officer conducted himself inappropriately, including sexually explicit remarks and physical advances.
The judges rejected the officer's claim that he was being blackmailed by the soldiers. His sentence is expected to be delivered within the next two weeks.
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