"Okay, I didn't remember at the time of the interrogation. But, whoever reads the investigation in depth, and looks at it, I said that while he was asking me for a loan, I took money from someone, and if you look I took 260,000 shekels from Stoller, which went into my account 3 or 4 days before, you have it. Not only that, I accidentally transferred it or my secretary, Haim said to transfer 260,000 shekels to me, I didn't remember Haim's story but it is a fact..." (Prov. p. 1420, s. 21).
The defendant stated in his testimony that he contacted Asher Stoller, apparently in view of specific liquidity difficulties, and asked him to transfer to him the sum that Yehezkel had instructed him to transfer to Ben-Eliezer, and when the sum was transferred to his account by the same Stoller, it was transferred to the entity to which it was referred by Ben-Eliezer (the receiver).
- The prosecution claimed that Asher Stoller's name first came up in court testimony, but according to the defendant's version, Stoller's name was mentioned in a telephone conversation between him and Investigator Biton.
The defendant stated as follows:
"... A week later, Mr. Bitton calls me nervously, I'm in Bulgaria, and he tells me I want to understand what it is, where the money comes from, what it is. And then I say to him, listen, if you're mad at me, I don't want to talk to you, talk to me, he said to me, Roy, I know you didn't do anything, his constant cliché I know you didn't do anything, explain to me about the 260 and I explained to him and I told him that the secretary knows it's life, that it's 250 and 10, And who knows about itAnd that's it, why isn't there a memorandum of it? Why was no one interrogated a week later, not my accountant, not my secretary, not the people of Queens, not anyone..." (Prov. p. 1423, s. 24).
Investigator Biton testified that there were indeed a number of phone conversations with the defendant, but there was no relevant documentation regarding the content of those conversations.