Former member of parliament for TOP 09 Dominik Feri is guilty of all charges, announced the decision of the district court for Prague 3. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison for two rapes and one attempted rape. Former politician Feri has repeatedly denied his guilt.
“The court considered it proven that the defendant committed sexual violence against all three victims,” said judge Lenka Hájková. According to her, Feri is primarily convicted by the statements of the girls, which correspond with other evidence. The credibility of the women was also confirmed by expert opinions. According to the non-judicial verdict, Feri must compensate the girls more than half a million crowns. The decision is not final, it can be assumed that Feri will appeal against it to the Prague Municipal Court.
According to the indictment, two acts of rape took place in 2016 in Feri’s apartment in Prague. According to the indictment, Feri kissed and groped both girls despite their disagreement and then performed sexual practices with them. One of them was 17 years old at the time, the prosecutor claims that Feri gave her a soft drink when she wanted to leave, after consuming which she fell into a state of “partial loss of consciousness”.
The third act, qualified as attempted rape, was supposed to have happened in 2018, when the then deputy invited a woman to the Chamber of Deputies because of a possible position as an intern. According to the investigators, he tried to kiss and grope the woman, but she managed to leave.
Feri has repeatedly denied the accusation, denying that he committed any sexual violence. At the trial and in his final proposal, he repeatedly pointed out the alleged contradictions in the women’s statements. He also said that the police and prosecutors are taking an alibi approach to his case. For him, the prosecution meant the destruction of his work life as well as his personal life.
When imposing the sentence, the judge took into account the fact that, according to her, Feri committed three crimes, she also took into account the fact that the victims were young girls. “The fact that he committed the crime as a young politician, whom the victims looked up to and trusted, does not benefit the defendant either,” Hájková said. She also negatively evaluated how Feri behaved during the interrogations of the girls, who was listening from the next room. According to Hájková, he laughed so loudly that the girls could hear him in the meeting room.
Feri was investigated by the police after several women accused him of sexual pressure, harassment and violence. The testimonies were published in the spring of 2021 by the Deník N and Alarm websites. After the girls’ statements were published, Feri resigned from his parliamentary mandate and announced that he would not run in the autumn elections to the House of Representatives. He also finished in TOP 09.
The district court started dealing with the case in February this year, further hearings took place in April and at the end of October. The public was excluded from most of the meetings to protect the sensitive data of the girls.
