A SENIOR NURSE has been spared jail for groping a co-worker in his car after “persistently” offering the woman a lift and boasting about threesomes.

Leonard Iliuta, 36, told the victim he was “a sex addict” and questioned her about her love life before touching her on her thigh and toward her vagina several times, Dublin District Court was told.

He pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting the healthcare worker during the incident, which happened within the past five years.

However, Iliuta, of Seaview Mews, Seatown West, Dublin, was convicted following a non-jury hearing before Judge John Hughes, who found his denials were “not credible”.

After hearing a mitigation plea and noting the victim’s impact statement, he imposed a four-month sentence, suspended on the condition that Iliuta did not reoffend in the next two years. During this time, he must remain on supervised probation and attend an offence-related treatment course.

He said that Iliuta was in a position of responsibility and more senior in work to the victim and it was clear the incident had significantly affected her. He also ordered him to pay her €2,000 compensation.

The woman told the sentence hearing that it had been “like carrying a ton of brick, and it has been put down”.

Defence counsel Garrett Casey told the court his client did not accept the verdict. 

Earlier, the woman told the court hearing that she had been working the same shifts as Iliuta and usually left before him to avoid his “quite persistent” offers of a lift in his car. On the day of the incident, she “reluctantly” accepted.

Initially, they chatted about him having a left-hand-drive car, she said, adding during the journey that the “conversation shifted to a kind of sexual nature”, and he brought up the subject of addiction.

The woman testified that “he stated that he was a sex addict and there was nothing he had not done”, including cheating on his girlfriend, threesomes and that he had previously been with a man”.

She alleged he did not seem ashamed of it, and the accused mentioned that she shared a flat with another woman.

The witness said he asked her if they ever had sex before and if she had sex with a named male.

The victim said she was uncomfortable, and Iliuta “put his hand on my left knee, lingered for a few seconds and then put it back on the gear stick”.

The woman told the court that every time he touched her leg, his hand lingered, and it started to go up, close to her vagina.

She recalled that the car reached traffic lights, and she asked to get out so she could walk.

However, she said he pulled her legs back to him when she tried to move away.

The court heard he put his hand on her left knee and once more moved it close to her vagina.

When they reached her home, he started talking about going for a drink or if there was anyone in her home. She recalled telling him someone was always there, but he “insinuated his house was free, and we could go to his house; I made no comment”.

The complainant said as she got out of his car, he asked if she was leaving, but she ignored him, and he motioned her to stay.

The court heard the woman remembered being “fairly shaken up” when she entered her home and immediately told her flatmate what happened. She then notified gardai and her employer.

She told State solicitor Niamh McKernan that she had been reluctant to take the lift. She described him as being overly friendly at work, but she felt pressured to accept, and “I could not get over how uncomfortable I felt.”

The court heard she no longer works with Iliuta, who had no prior criminal convictions.

Iliuta rejected the allegations and denied talking about sex. He claimed they just spoke about him having a foreign car and that she told him she was stressed and that she and others at work were taking drugs.

Asked if he notified his employer about learning of drug abuse among other workers, he said no because he did not want to judge and that it was “none of my business”. He claimed to have been shocked when he learned of the allegations and that it was character defamation.