Prague – Today, the District Court for Prague 3 sentenced former MP Dominik Feri to three years in prison for two rapes and one attempted rape. He found him guilty on all counts. The decision is not final, Feri immediately appealed against it to the Prague Municipal Court. The former politician 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.
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.
The public prosecutor accuses Feri of three acts, two of which, according to her, took place in March and November 2016 in his apartment in Prague 3. According to the indictment, Feri kissed and groped the two girls despite their disapproval and then performed sexual practices with them. One of them was 17 years old at the time.
The public prosecutor claims that the minor girl drank a soft drink before she left, after which she fell into a state of “partial loss of consciousness”. The fact that the woman ingested a narcotic substance, but according to the judge, it was not proven, the state in which she found herself could have been caused by other reasons.
According to the indictment, the third incident happened in 2018, when Feri invited a woman to the Chamber of Deputies for a possible intern position. According to the investigators, he tried to kiss and grope the woman, but she managed to leave, therefore the prosecution qualifies the case as an attempted sexual assault. The prosecutor proposed a three-year prison sentence for Feri.
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. According to him, the prosecution meant the destruction of his work life as well as his personal life.
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.
CR Court Chamber Feri AUDIO rape PHOTO OPENER
