Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, appeared in court on Sunday to admit criminal wrongdoing over the misuse of state funds to order catered meals, in a plea bargain carrying no jail time.
“THIS LADY IS MADE OF STEEL”
Under the agreement, a fraud charge was reduced to a lesser offence and she will pay the state 45,000 shekels ($12,490) in reimbursement and a 10,000 shekel ($2,775) fine.
Netanyahu’s attorney Yossi Cohen told the court his client had already been heavily punished by the media. “Four years of ugly leaks and denigrations” constituted “inhuman punishment”, he said. “No other person could have withstood this, this lady is made of steel,” Cohen added.
According to the original indictment, Sara Netanyahu, along with a government employee, fraudulently obtained from the state more than $100,000 for hundreds of meals supplied by restaurants, bypassing regulations that prohibit the practice if a cook is employed at home.
Smiling broadly, Netanyahu faced a phalanx of cameras in the courthouse before the session got under way.