U.S. Businessman Testifies Against Olmert
A businessman from Long Island testified in an Israeli court this week that involved Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In his testimony he stated that he gave Olmert $150,000 in cash over a period of 13 years. The businessman – Morris Talansky – went on to say that much of the money was used for Olmert’s personal expenses as well as his election campaigns.
It included at least $25,000 in cash meant for a vacation in Italy and almost $5,000 to cover Mr. Olmert’s bill at a Washington hotel because Mr. Olmert’s own credit card was “maxed out,” Mr. Talansky said. Some of the money was intended as a loan but has not been repaid “to this very day,” he said during seven hours of questioning at the Jerusalem District Court.
According to the prosecution, the money was provided between 1992, when Mr. Olmert first ran for mayor of Jerusalem, and late 2005, when Mr. Olmert was Israel’s minister of industry and trade. He became prime minister in early 2006. Mr. Olmert, who is formally suspected of receiving illicit funds, has described the money as legitimate contributions for election campaigns and has emphatically denied ever taking a bribe. He has not been indicted in the case but has pledged to resign if charged.
After Tuesday’s deposition, politicians on the right and the left said that if Mr. Talansky were telling the truth, Mr. Olmert must go. But the prime minister, who is the focus of at least three other current police investigations, has proved a deft survivor so far.
In an unusual move, the Israeli courts ruled last week that Mr. Talansky should give an early deposition even though Mr. Olmert has not been charged. Mr. Talansky, who lives in Woodsburgh in Nassau County, has been eager to return to the United States, and the Israeli authorities feared that he might not return to Israel if Mr. Olmert were put on trial.
The prime minister’s lawyers tried, and failed, to prevent the early deposition, arguing that it would prejudice the case. On Tuesday they received the court’s approval to delay their cross-examination of Mr. Talansky until mid-July, by which time Mr. Talansky has promised to return. In the meantime, Eli Zohar, one of Mr. Olmert’s lawyers, urged patience and said the truth would come out in the cross-examination.
While Mr. Talansky denied that he had ever expected anything in return, at times it sounded as if he had acted as Mr. Olmert’s personal A.T.M. Mr. Talansky, a fund-raiser and financier, said he would get calls from Mr. Olmert’s office manager at the time, Shula Zaken, another suspect in the case, asking for money for Mr. Olmert’s expenses during speaking tours in the United States. Mr. Talansky said that at such times he would provide $3,000 or $4,000, perhaps to get Mr. Olmert a more expensive hotel suite, or to allow him to stay an extra day or two, or to upgrade his plane ticket from business class to first.
Asked by the state prosecutor, Moshe Lador, if he knew how his money was spent, Mr. Talansky said of Mr. Olmert, “I only know that he loves expensive cigars, pens, watches; I found it strange, but you know. …” He shrugged. Mr. Talansky occasionally launched into impassioned monologues about the failings of American Jewry and his own love of Israel. He twice broke down in tears, once when Mr. Lador suggested that he might not complete his testimony in one day, and again when he accused the Israeli authorities of making him “feel like a criminal.”
Mr. Talansky is being treated as a witness, but he could end up a suspect as well. Mr. Lador clarified that “no decision of any kind” had been made “about anyone involved in the case.”