Cooks at the Prime Minister's Residence served food with glass shards in it, associates of the Netanyahu family said over the weekend, following news that the prime minister's wife, Sara, was indicted for fraud over alleged financial irregularities in the official residence in Jerusalem.
Sara Netanyahu faces charges of fraud, breach of trust and aggravated fraudulent receipt of goods in a case concerning several affairs in the Prime Minister's Residence. The crux of the indictment centers on suspicions that, between 2010 and 2013, Netanyahu misused public funds by spending some 390,000 shekels (over $100,000) on catered gourmet meals, despite employing two state-funded cooks.
The prime minister's wife denies any wrongdoing. If convicted, she could face up to five years behind bars.
On Saturday, Netanyahu family associates presented a letter allegedly proving the prime minister's wife's assertion that employees preparing food at the residence were not professional cooks.
According to a Hadashot evening news report, the letter – an apology by one of the employees – was written after an incident in which she had dropped a jar of sauce on the floor, picked it up and used the same sauce to make lasagna. The prime minister's wife then found glass shards in the food.
"Dear Mrs. Netanyahu, I don't even know where to begin. I'm so sorry. I'm very upset about what happened last night," the employee's letter reads.
"We had a very busy evening … I had to prepare food for you and for Avenr [one of the Netanyahus' sons] ... and I have no idea how the glass got into the sauce. The jar was in a bag and I picked it up, it was broken into little pieces … I only used what was clean in the sauce.
"I really don't know how the glass got into the sauce. It was a terrible mistake," the employee continued. "I could never hurt anyone, let alone you. I think of you as family. I don't know what to say. A thousand apologies. I take full responsibility for my mistake. I'm sorry."
The prime minister on Friday excoriated the State Attorney's Office over the decision to file criminal charges against his wife.
"Another record in this absurd [investigation] was broken this week," he said in a video message posted on his Facebook page.
"For the first time in history, a leader's wife is facing charges over catered food. Over food. Forget the fact that everyone – employees, official guests, even heads of state – ate that food. The most absurd thing about this case is that it's based on an illegal directive."
The Civil Service directives pertaining to the management of the Prime Minister's Residence place certain limitations on the use of catered food given that it employs full-time cooks.
Sara Netanyahu's lawyers said last week that the restrictions on ordering food to the official residence were invalid, as they were set by functionaries who were unauthorized to do so.
The prime minister echoed this assertion in his video, saying, "Five days before I took office as prime minister in 2009, three unauthorized officials set up a special procedure [for catered food], even though they had not received the approval of the Knesset's Finance Committee to do so.
"The Knesset's Finance Committee has the final say and it has determined that the state bears the living expenses of the prime minister and his family's at the Prime Minister's Residence – just like it does for the President's Residence. This means this [the restriction] is an illegal directive. An indictment based on an illegal directive does not hold water," he stated.
Hadashot's report also included excerpts from the testimony of Nir Hefetz, a former Netanyahu family spokesman turned state-witness in a corruption investigation against the prime minister, on the prime minister's wife's demands with regards to the residence's expenses.
"Once it became clear that the State Comptroller's Office was going to publish a report on the expenses at the residence that was the only thing I dealt with. … It was the only thing the prime minister dealt with. He may have focused a little on the affairs of the state."
Hefetz claims that "I had to deal with the issue of household expenses over the years when Sara would argue with [Ezra] Saidoff [the other defendant in the case]. If legal counsel, the accountant or the comptroller at the [Prime Minister's] Office would deny their expenses … Sara would use me to convince them to approve them. I'm talking about dozens of cases. ... It was a Sisyphean struggle."
While he supports the Netanyahus' claim that the kitchen at the Jerusalem residence was used by all the employees, Hefetz described "an ongoing, daily attempt" by the prime minister's wife to have the state fund household expenses for the family's private residence in Caesarea.
"Sara wanted the state to pay for the Big Brother [cable] channel in Yair's room," he said, referring to the Netanyahus' son. She wanted to replace all the windows in the house, because someone could try to shoot the prime minister. She wanted the house replastered saying that a piece of plaster could fall on the prime minister's head and wound him. There were numerous cases, and she exhausted the system," he said.
