Police: American stewardess raped at Tel Aviv hotel

Woman tells police men she met at a club raped her in her hotel room; one of the accused says sex occurred but was consensual.

By BEN HARTMAN
female flight attendant 370 (photo credit: REUTERS)
female flight attendant 370
(photo credit: REUTERS)
An American stewardess was raped in a Tel Aviv hotel last month by two men she met at a local club, police said Monday, after a gag order on the case was lifted.
One of the suspects, 26-year-old Elad Winegar, was arrested on Saturday and his remand was extended until this coming Sunday. Police said they know the identity of the second suspect but have not yet managed to locate him.
Tel Aviv police said that a month ago, the woman, who was in Israel in transit for the American airline company she works for, complained to police that she had gone out to a club in Tel Aviv where she met two men who raped her in her hotel room. The woman said she had gone out with friends but at some point remained at the club by herself, at which point she met the two men, with whom she returned to her hotel in Tel Aviv.
Sometime after they arrived at the hotel the two men raped the women, she later told police.
Under questioning, Winegar told police that the sex did take place, but was purely consensual.
The incident is the latest in a series of alleged rapes of female tourists in Tel Aviv in the past few months.
In July, a South African teenager told police she was raped at a public bathroom at Banana beach in Tel Aviv, while only a month earlier, a female American tourist said she was raped in the back of a store at the Jaffa flea market by two men in the middle of the day.