The two met through the TikTok app on June 16, three days after the strikes on Iran sent the country into emergency mode.
Content warning: This article contains detailed descriptions of a violent attack of physical and sexual nature that may be disturbing and upsetting. Reader discretion is advised; please proceed with caution.
David Lacks, 19, was indicted on Thursday for the violent attack and rape of a 15-year-old girl in Tel Aviv.
The two met through the TikTok app on June 16, three days after the strikes on Iran sent the country into emergency mode.
The girl lied about her age, saying she was 17. They met that Monday and spent the day in Rosh Ha’ayin together.
The next day, on June 17 at around 3 p.m., Lacks picked her up in his car from her house, driving towards Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv. On the way, he told her he had alcoholic beverages in his bag. He drank a full cup of Arak, while she drank some Arak mixed with lemonade.
The bicycle path between Herzliya and Tel Aviv (credit: HERZLIYA MUNICIPALITY, official site)
When they arrived at the park, they sat on the grass and began to kiss. During the kiss, he bit her upper lip hard, making it swell.
He then poured a full cup of Arak down her throat. She got dizzy and laid down on the grass to steady herself, but he laid on top of her, on her stomach, and bit her face, close to her right eye, and on her left cheek and ear, hurting her.
She began to scream, asked that he stop, and told him he was hurting her. He responded that he enjoyed seeing her in pain.
She reached for his hands in an attempt to push him off of her, but he pulled off her shirt and bra, bit and aggressively sucked her nipples, leaving bruises, “all for the sake of debasement and his own sexual pleasure,” reads the indictment.
At around 5:15 p.m., a siren went off, signaling a missile launch, and they together ran to a nearby shelter. She cried the whole time.
When the all-clear signal was sent out, they smoked a cigarette together outside. Lacks put out the cigarette on her left arm, saying, again, that he enjoyed seeing her in pain, and leaving a cigarette-butt-shaped burn mark.
They then returned to the park; she was dizzy from all the alcohol and fell to the floor, lying on her stomach. He grabbed her behind and aggressively massaged it.
He then told her to follow him out to an area close to some nearby trees so he could urinate. He left his pants down, his genital area exposed, and asked if she wanted to have sex with him.
She said no, and he asked instead if she would service him anyway. She said no, he asked again, and after she again refused and turned to leave, he grabbed her by her hair, turned her around, and rubbed himself up against her.
He again asked if she wanted to have sex, and she again refused.
He raped her then, holding her by her head.
She managed to break from his grasp and turned to leave, but due to her intoxicated and incapacitated state, she again lay on the grass. He lay next to her and put his hand into her underwear. She tried to swat it away, but he pressed on.
He then grabbed her hand and forced it into his pants to touch him, asking her if she “knows how to suck well, with teeth.” She responded negatively, and he asked her, again and again, if he could put it in her mouth. He eventually did that, against her will, until he finished.
Lacks’s arrest and prosecution
He was arrested on June 22. The charges against him are rape, indecent acts with force and assault, aggravated assault, and personal injury.
The prosecution noted that her recollections of the event were consistent in questioning, and that her parents and sister bore witness to her physical and emotional state after the attack. The victim also told a close friend what had happened to her.
Lacks denied all the charges against him.
Elem, an association for teens-at-risk, said in response: “We believe [her]… It is up to all of us to take responsibility and face reality. This necessitates a thorough and fundamental check of how the system handles cases like these.” It added that it deals with hundreds of sexual assault cases in teens-at-risk every year.
“We have to remember that sexual assault victims won’t always be able to come forward. When such an attack takes place, not just the victim but their entire circle gets hurt.”