'Katsav is a pervert, serial sex offender' : Alleged rape victim:

Alleged rape victim: 'Katsav is a pervert, serial sex offender'

By Haaretz Staff
Thu., June 28, 2007 Tamuz 12, 5767

A., the first woman to accuse President Moshe Katsav of rape a year ago, yesterday told her story of how the president allegedly sexually assaulted her while she was working at the President's Residence.

"He terrorized my body and my soul," she said.

Upset and agitated, A. appeared at a televised news conference hours after Katsav had signed a plea bargain under whose terms the rape charges against him will be dropped and he will serve no active jail time.

Speaking out for the first time, A. insisted that the president raped her even after the planned rape charges were dropped, calling him a

"pervert and serial sex offender" who turned her into a "sex slave."

She expressed outrage at the lenient plea bargain, saying it gave

"sex offenders license and legitimacy to do anything they want with impunity."

"Don't complain," A. said, addressing victims of sexual violence. "Go to a psychologist, but don't go to the police. Especially if the attacker is a public figure."

The harassment she suffered increased as she was promoted at the President's Residence, A. said. From the very beginning of her work there Katsav showered her with comments on her appearance, such as

"you're beautiful, you're sexy, I want to know you, I'm interested in you, your skirt is nice, your hair is nice, etc," she said.

Katsav used to call her late at night and tell her he was lonely. She asked to resign from her position at the President's Residence, but after her resignation was rejected she gave in to pressures and stayed on, she said.

After she was promoted, Katsav began exposing his genitals to her and asking her to touch him, she said. In response, she said,

"I felt the blood drain from my head and body."

She said his comments became more and more offensive as time went on.

A. said that Katsav repeatedly raped her, and that she did not have the physical strength nor the mental ability to stop him. She said that after the first incident, she didn't come to work for a few days and received threatening phone calls from the president.

"He threatened to ruin my life," she said.

Speaking of the time she was promoted to coordinator of the President's Bureau, A. said,

"There I was exposed to that immoral person called Moshe Katsav. Narcissist, self-absorbed, media hound - he is obsessed by what others may say... I think he has a split personality."

By the time A. was appointed office coordinator, three secretaries had come and gone.

"Nobody survived that ordeal and nobody knows what they had to endure. But I know, because I have been there. I continued suffering physical and verbal sexual harassment, as well as his attacks of rage. It was like living in a psychological horror movie," she said.

"He gave me nightmares," she said. "It started with telephone calls from 7:30 A.M. while I was still at home, sleeping, or preparing for the day's work. 'What are you going to wear this morning? Why don't you put on a skirt, with no underpants...,'" he asked her according to her statements.

In the car she would get another phone call.

"'I've missed you, how can I pass the time here without you.' This went on all the time. Hundreds, thousands of calls, none of them about work-related topics," she said.

"To this day, every time I look at the clock and it's 10 A.M., I get the shudders. That was exactly the time he'd come down from the private quarters to the bureau and say the same sentence: 'Come into my office.' I always wondered why I had to go into his office when he has a bureau chief. Then I'd go into his room and try to behave normally, like a secretary, going over routine material about speeches. And his comments would begin. 'You amaze me, I dreamed about you at night, while I was sleeping with Gila, my wife. You're a sexy woman, you can enjoy things not every woman can get.' And so on," she said.

The comments became more blatant, more vulgar, A. said.

"This is a man who would sit every morning, take out his penis and shake it or wave it about saying to me, come sit, come touch, come stroke... I have nieces, I have a family, I can't repeat those things..." she said.

She told Katsav that things had gone beyond friendship or a boss-employee relationship.

"I'm talking to you about a pervert of the worst kind," she said. "A senior media adviser who worked with him once described him as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

Some time later the third bureau chief left and A. was promoted to her post, where she served for about five months.

The rest of the staff are not allowed to enter the bureau, where she was alone most of the time, she said. Katsav's bureau was insulated

"with a massive, padded oak door. Nobody can get in without a buzzer, and the only person holding another buzzer to open the door is the security guard outside the office..." she said.

"Once he was sitting facing me and we were dealing with some paper work. He asked me to stand up for a moment. He asked me to stand up again and I did, and he came toward me and said: 'you simply attract me, you drive me crazy,' and without further explanation his hand went to my bosom...I pushed him away and said 'leave me alone, you've crossed the line, it's over, it's impossible, just leave me alone.'"

When she tried to leave he grabbed her and said

"I'm sorry, it's a mistake, nothing happened," she said. She stayed home for two or three days, not knowing how to handle the situation, and decided not to return, she said.

"He called me on the phone and screamed at me that I was irresponsible, cheeky and making a big deal out of nothing and that he would make my life a misery. My friend who was with me heard every word and testified to the police," she said.

After she returned to the office things got worse. Once, when she was standing in the bureau, Katsav pinned her from behind so she couldn't move and said

"I want to sleep with you, I want to have sex with you," she said. "He's not a big man but he's very strong... he pushed me to the corner of the desk, his hands on mine... he opened my pants... what happened was... I gave in to something I didn't want, I tried to move him away but it was no good. He took my pants off... took his pants off and committed a full sexual intercourse. This was repeated on several occasions, three or four," she said, adding that she became Katsav's "sex slave."

She accused Katsav of threatening her that if she didn't return to work something bad would happen to her and that he would "destroy" her life. "He said 'I'll find you wherever you are, you'd better keep silent and come to the office,'" she said.

"Katsav is a rapist, he's a serial sex offender, he's a pervert, I worked with this man for two years and experienced sexual abuse and forced intercourse," A. concluded. "I'm stunned and hurt by the attorney general's decision. I'm very angry, I don't deserve this. Ten women complained against Katsav, he acted systematically."