JOHANNESBURG – Former stockbroker Sidney Frankel says he has been on the receiving end of a continuous barrage of media onslaughts, exposure and hype orchestrated by his accusers’ lawyer.
Frankel is facing a civil claim brought by several people who allege he sexually abused them decades ago when they were young children.
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He’s filed an affidavit as part of an attempt to get his accusers who live overseas to put up money as security before the matter goes to court.
In his affidavit, Frankel criticises his accuser’s attorney, Ian Levitt, labeling him the author and producer and the hype media exposure he’s facing.
He claims Levitt has employed underhanded and malicious strategy to focus media attention both on his case and on himself.
Frankel accused Levitt of disseminating documents to the media and organising as press conference in conjunction with women and men against child abuse.
The former stockbroker lambasted Levitt for publicly referring to him as a monster at the hearing and for maliciously ridiculing him and his wife.
Frankel also described recordings of phone calls with his wife as abusive and inappropriate and that he was ambushed by one of his accusers.
Earlier this month, Levitt said his clients want to see Frankel criminally charged and for the law around prescription to be changed.
“This man belongs in jail. If you touch a child, if you molest a child, you do belong in jail because there is no reason why a civil case should say you can sue or that you’ve got a claim 35 years later… But in a criminal court prescription works differently.”
Currently, the state can only criminally charge an accused within 20 years of the offence being committed.
After the claim was filed, Frankel’s lawyer Billy Gundelfinger responded by bringing an application for security, asking those claimants who live overseas to put up R145, 000 each.
Gundelfinger say the plaintiffs’ decision to hold a media briefing in Johannesburg, on Thursday, is an example of how they’re handling the matter.
“This is completely false. I have taken valid procedural steps and it is outrageous that Ian Levitt, the attorney representing the seven plaintiffs, says in his affidavit that I am dragging the matter through the courts and the media.”
Levitt said they’re now going to go to the Constitutional Court in a bid to change the country’s laws around prescription; the time period that can lapse after a sexual offence has been committed.
Source : Eyewitness News by Mandy Wiener
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Sidney Frankel
The Johannesburg based billionaire stockbroker Sidney Frankel is being sued by a group seven individuals, who are accusing him, in a civil case, of inflicting sexual abuse on them more than twenty years More…
