Sara Netanyahu, Wife of Israeli Prime Minister, to Face Fraud Charges

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JERUSALEM — Israel’s attorney general said Friday that he intended to bring fraud charges against Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing her of misusing some $100,000 in public funds in her management of the prime minister’s official residence.

But the nation’s top prosecutor also closed, citing a lack of evidence, a host of other inquiries into Mrs. Netanyahu. These included allegations that she had used state funds to pay for outdoor furniture and electrical work for the Netanyahus’ private home in Caesarea, had public employees care for her dying father, and improperly redeemed more than $1,000 in bottle deposits for cash.

Mrs. Netanyahu, who will have the opportunity to try to block an indictment at a hearing, is accused of conspiring with a member of the prime minister’s staff to conceal the fact that the residence employed a government-paid cook so she could order hundreds of catered meals from expensive restaurants and charge them to the state. Government rules prohibit charging the government for meals when a cook is on the premises.

While the amount involved in the case seems relatively minor, the so-called “meal-booking affair,” as the Israeli media calls it, is one of four corruption investigations closing in on Mr. Netanyahu and adds to the perception that Mrs. Netanyahu has exploited her husband’s office to finance her opulent tastes.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said he would seek an indictment of Mrs. Netanyahu on charges of aggravated acquisition through fraudulent means, fraud and breach of trust. The most serious charge carries a possible sentence of five years in prison.

For an Israeli public that has been riveted by the two-year, consistently leaky corruption investigation of the prime minister, his family and his top aides, the announcement met a fairly muted response. Mrs. Netanyahu has long battled a reputation for cupidity, and she and her husband have frequently turned allegations against them to their political advantage.

The embattled Mr. Netanyahu is the focus of two more consequential graft investigations, and has been tainted by his close links to another, far bigger scandal involving a $2 billion purchase of German-made submarines and missile ships.

Mr. Netanyahu posted messages on Facebook calling the accusations against his wife “absurd.” He assailed the state’s chief witness against her, a former household custodian, as “a serial liar” peddling a “delusional and mendacious story.”

“The very preoccupation with the food of Prime Minister Netanyahu, who works around the clock on behalf of the state and its security, and the food of his family, is pathetic and obsessive,” he complained. “No prime minister before was subject to that kind of nosiness, even though the meal expenses of other prime ministers were identical and often far higher.

“How much longer will this obsessive preoccupation with the Netanyahu family go on?’”

Mrs. Netanyahu also figures into one of the cases focusing on her husband: Investigators are looking into whether the prime minister offered official favors in return for gifts for him and his family, including expensive cigars, pink Champagne and other goods from wealthy friends like Arnon Milchan, the Israeli Hollywood producer.

Another case involves cutthroat back-room deal making: Mr. Netanyahu was recorded seeking favorable coverage from a newspaper publisher in exchange for curtailing the circulation of a free competitor that is considered supportive of him.

“All the charges that you see now, the fact that Sara is part of the story – it’s about the gray area between the personal and political, the personal and the national, between the office and the home,” said Yoaz Hendel, a former spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu who leads a right-leaning research group, the Institute for Zionist Strategies. “His weak point is this gray area. He might find himself out of office only because he thought that it’s not important enough to supervise and take responsibility for what’s happening in those gray areas.”

But Zalman Shoval, a member of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party and a former ambassador to the United States, said it would take a weightier case against the prime minister himself to move public opinion. “People are beginning to be a bit philosophical about this whole thing,” he said. “Ultimately, all will depend at the end of the day on whether there’s something serious in it.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s political opponents were measured in their responses to the attorney general’s announcement.

“As bad as it seems, it doesn’t change the entire picture,” said Nachman Shai, a legislator from the opposition Zionist Union. “He’s the prime minister. That’s his wife, with all respect. The other cases now have to be investigated. She’s not a political figure, and she doesn’t represent the Likud.”

In a Twitter post, Tzipi Livni, a former justice minister and foreign minister from the Zionist Union, found fault with Mr. Netanyahu’s Facebook posts, but left the allegations against his wife aside.

“What hasn’t been heard is an appropriate response from a decent prime minister,” she wrote: “I am certain of my wife’s innocence and put my trust in the justice system that the truth will come to light. That’s it.”