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Fri 25 Jun 2004
1:11pm (UK)
Indecent Proposal Claim 'Is Ridiculous'
By Cathy Gordon, PA News.
Wealthy businessman Brian Maccaba dismissed the allegation that he had offered a husband one million dollars for his wife as ''ridiculous''.
There had been no ''Indecent Proposal'' for teacher Alain Attar's wife Nathalie, he told the High Court.
His case was that his relationship with Mrs Attar, with whom he shared a love of poetry, had been an intensely emotional one.
The twice-married father of six told the jury hearing his slander claim against a senior rabbi that the friendship was ''reciprocal'', but it was never physical and he had not been sexually attracted to her.
In August 1999, when they were both experiencing difficulties in their marriages, Mrs Attar had ''declared her love for me'', he said, and it was then he realised their emotional closeness had gone too far.
He and his wife Ruth, who was by his side in court, had managed to sort out their problems.
But it was Mrs Attar's case that his attentions were unwelcome, that he had tried to destabilise her marriage and had twice sexually harassed her – once with a kiss on the lips and on another occasion fondling her breast.
Mr Maccaba, who had lent the young couple a deposit for their London home and employed Jewish studies teacher Mrs Attar at a school he founded, vehemently denied her claims of sexual misconduct.
In May 2001 a Jewish court, the Kedassia Beth Din, investigated her claims of sexual harassment against Mr Maccaba, and the alleged million dollar offer, and found them ''not proven''.
The story of the offer later hit the headlines.
It was described in newspapers as a ''real life'' version of the 1993 Hollywood film Indecent Proposal, starring Demi Moore and Robert Redford, in which Redford offers a couple a million dollars for the wife to spend a night with him.
Mr Maccaba said of it: ''This story has got very wide currency. I don't believe there was any ground for the million dollar story, but it was published all over the world and caused great damage.''
He agreed with the suggestion by a defence lawyer that it would be ''abhorrent for a rich man to try and buy another man's wife''.
Mrs Attar was ''horrified'' by the publicity. So concerned was she that a pre-trial application was made for an anonymity order, but it was refused.
The seven-months pregnant mother of three later went into the witness box in the full glare of international publicity – dramatically confronting Mr Maccaba and accusing him of lying.
After falling ill and fainting during a lunchtime recess, she flew home to Israel and later continued her evidence via video link.
Mrs Attar, 35, now a student of law, rejected the suggestion that she had loved Mr Maccaba more than her husband and that this had put her marriage to Alain in ''crisis''.
''I don't love him and I never loved him,'' she told the jury.
She accused him of trying ''whatever he could in order to break my marriage''.
It was Mr Maccaba who had made the declaration of love, not her.
Mrs Attar described her husband, whom she married in 1993, as her ''life''. He and her children were ''everything''.
''I was not looking for any experience with anybody else.''
At the time she was alleged to have become emotionally interested in Mr Maccaba, she had just moved into a new home in London and was ''building a wonderful family''.
It was ''totally false'' that she and Alain had been suffering marital problems at the time.
Her husband too denied there had been any closeness between the millionaire and his wife.
He claimed Mr Maccaba told him in the summer of 1999 that he had fallen in love with Nathalie the first time he saw her and wanted to have her children.
Mr Attar said: ''He said to me 'If you only knew how much she is worth to me'. He said 'I will throw a figure at you'. I said 'OK, Brian'.
''He said to me 'She is worth a million dollars to me'.''
Mr Maccaba denied that he had also made an offer for Nathalie in a poem he had written to her, Knocking On Heaven's Door, which referred to ''one million dollars cash''.
It was just a silly poem, he said. There had never been any offer for Nathalie.
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