Police: Two teenage girls raped at Tel Aviv club

Girls allegedly became intoxicated at Allenby Street club, staying there after doors closed; club owner, employee arrested.

By BEN HARTMAN
44 Club on Allenby Tel Aviv 370 (photo credit: Ben Hartman )
44 Club on Allenby Tel Aviv 370
(photo credit: Ben Hartman )
The owner of a Tel Aviv nightclub and one of his employees were arrested on Monday morning on suspicion of involvement in the rape of two teenage girls at the club last Sunday night.
The case was opened when paramedics found the two 17- year-old girls lying unconscious in the early morning on Yona Hanavi Street in Tel Aviv. After the girls came to, one of them reportedly told the police that she thought she had been raped earlier in the night at the Allenby 44 club around the corner.
Under questioning, the two girls said they came to the club shortly before it closed and began to drink heavily with workers at the bar. They ended up becoming very intoxicated and stayed behind at the club after it closed its doors. According to police, the two girls were then assaulted, no longer able to fight off the men’s advances or give consent, both because of their age and their inebriated state. Police said one of the girls was dragged to a bathroom where she was sexually assaulted, while the other was attacked in the middle of the club.
Speaking to reporters at the Lev Tel Aviv police station on Monday afternoon, Ch.-Insp. Itzik Cohen, head of the investigations branch of the subdistrict, said that police are still looking for two additional suspects, both employees of the bar, who they suspect took part in the assaults.
He said that police don’t believe the owner was at the bar at the time of the incident, but rather, is suspected of obstruction of justice for refusing to hand over the surveillance camera footage from the bar or giving up information on his employees.
Cohen said the girls had been at the bar before in the past and were somewhat acquainted with the employees.
He added that they had already been drinking when they arrived at Allenby 44, and continued to drink when the bar staff gave them free drinks until after closing. He said that after the attacks, the girls were dragged out of the bar and placed on Yona Hanavi Street, where they remained from about 4 a.m. until 7 a.m., when they were discovered and paramedics were called.
He would not say whether the suspects had each raped both of the girls, or if each girl had been assaulted by more than one person.
Cohen added that with the summer vacation coming up, teenagers must be careful about binge drinking.
In court on Monday, police said the two girls were incapable of standing at the time of the assaults, and that employees of the club had served them an enormous amount of alcohol to get them into that state.
On Monday, the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court extended the remand of the club owner by one day, and that of the employee, who is suspected of taking part in the assaults, by four days.