Sara Netanyahu, Wife of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been charged for misusing Public Funds for lavish meals.
On Sunday, a court in Jerusalem found her guilty in the said charges and she was fined for 15,000 USD by Judge Avital Chen, while other severe charges of fraud were dropped due to the plea bargain.
Sara was originally charged for fraud and breach of trust as she spent approximately 100,000 USD on catering from lavish restaurants between 2010 and 2013, in-spite, of having a cook provided by the state. She had falsely declared that the state had not provided a cook at the PM’s residence.
PM Netanyahu, who is also a prospect in three corruption cases requested the court to allow the payment of a fine in monthly installments. He is also likely to be charged in the ongoing cases which may end his leadership and result in a prison sentence. He is entangled in a series of severe corruption investigations and is due to appear at a pre-trial hearing in October after Israel’s attorney general announced his intention to indict in all three cases.
It is not the first time that the wife of Prime Minster has been charged in a case or fined by the court. She has faced mistreatment allegations from her employees as well. She was fined in 2017 in the case of bullying her domestic staff. In 2016 a court granted around 47,000 USD in harms to a previous servant who blamed her for rehashed workplace maltreatment in a comparative case.
While defending her in court, her lawyer regarded her as ‘Lady Made of Steel’, as she has already been severely punished by the media. He said, “Four years of ugly leaks and denigrations constituted inhuman punishment, no other person could have withstood this. This lady is made of steel,”