Content warning: This article discusses sensitive topics, including sexual violence.
A security guard at the Prime Minister’s Residence inappropriately touched female employees in intimate areas, a Civil Service Disciplinary Court ruling revealed on Sunday.
The guard served during the terms of then-prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, respectively. The Bennett-Lapid government was in power from June 2021 until December 2022.
Authorities launched an investigation after one employee reported that the guard had filmed her during a staff party. Despite the incident, no criminal proceedings were initiated.
On August 13, the court sentenced the guard, who is in his 30s, after convicting him of committing indecent acts against two employees. Four women initially filed complaints; however, two declined to testify, leaving two complainants in the case.
The primary complainant came forward about six months after the incidents. She testified that during a staff party held in a loft, she saw the guard filming her.
"He filmed me in a swimsuit," she said, describing the emotional distress the act caused her. She later testified that for roughly three months afterward, he continued to harass her, stating, "He put a stick into my chest."
PM's security guard touched employees without consent
According to the court’s decision, the guard touched employees without their consent around their breasts, buttocks, and thighs. The investigation began covertly and later became public, ultimately resulting in the guard's dismissal.
While the court deemed the offenses serious, no criminal case was opened. The prosecution had requested a 12-year ban on his employment in the Prime Minister’s Office, but the court ruled that he would be barred for five years from returning to the office and for an additional five years from any civil service role.
During the proceedings, the safety officer at the residence offered counter-testimony.
"There is a person monitoring the cameras 24/7; there is no blind spot, everything is filmed. It is impossible that this happened."
Merav Zamir, the attorney representing the former security guard, claimed that the lawsuit was a plot by one of the complainants to sabotage him.
"This is a malicious plot initiated by one employee who tried to recruit other employees to support her complaint against an outstanding worker she sought to remove," Zamir said. "Two of them refused to cooperate and testified that nothing ever happened, and therefore the court was forced to acquit him completely of two charges.”
She went on to say that the complainant lacked evidence and logic.
"This case was characterized by a lack of evidence and utterly unreliable testimonies that do not align with logic or common sense. We proved that this was a secured and filmed site with no ‘blind spots,’ which contradicts such claims," she said.
"His conviction is the result of a biased court that followed its ‘gut feelings’ instead of the evidence. If this defendant had been tried in a professional criminal court, the plot would have been exposed. This is why the complainants avoided filing a police report and deliberately refrained from opening a criminal case, preferring a more convenient forum such as the disciplinary court. Although the prosecution did not receive the sentence it sought, the defendant will continue to proclaim his innocence at every opportunity."