Alex Gilady withdraws #metoo libel lawsuit against two female reporters
Keshet president says he 'does not remember' the harassment incident described on live TV by journalist Oshrat Kotler.
By AMY SPIROUpdated: JANUARY 2, 2019 18:00Israeli International Olympic Committee member Alex Gilady(photo credit: REUTERS)
Former Keshet president Alex Gilady has withdrawn a NIS 2 million libel lawsuit against two female reporters who accused him of sexual harassment.Almost exactly a year ago, Gilady filed a suit against two journalists, Oshrat Kotler of Channel Ten News and Neri Livneh of Haaretz. The lawsuit claimed that the two women accused Gilady of sexual harassment in order to "'hitch a ride' for their own personal gain."In a statement on Wednesday, Channel Ten News said Gilady had withdrawn the lawsuit "after a mediation proceeding between the two parties." The statement said that Gilady "does not remember the events of 1994 that Kotler described on air." It also quoted Gilady saying that "such behavior is not in his character" and he had no intention of harming Kotler.Haaretz reported Wednesday that the lawsuit against Livneh was also dropped. Both women expressed satisfaction that the case would not be moving forward in the legal system.In November 2017, Gilady stepped down from Keshet after multiple accusations of sexual harassment and assault. At the time he said the move was temporary and that he will "fight to prove my innocence of these baseless accusations."Kotler was the first to make a claim against Gilady, live on air on Channel Ten, that he made an indecent proposal to her and tried to pressure her into sleeping with him when she was applying for a job. Several days later, Livneh published a column in Haaretz alleging that Gilady exposed himself to her during a professional meeting. And a third woman anonymously alleged on Channel Ten that Gilady raped her about 20 years ago.Gilady is also a member of the International Olympic Committee - the only Israeli - and has been since 1994. He is also the vice chair of the Tokyo 2020 Coordination Commission, and the IOC said after the allegations that it had no intention of removing him.Separately, on Wednesday a Channel Ten staffer made a complaint to the police that Kotler trapped her in a room and threatened her. Kotler wrote on Facebook Wednesday afternoon that nothing of the sort "ever happened," and that they merely had a heated conversation which she apologized for the next day.
