Nawrocki's former security colleague, a woman, testifies in his suit against Onet

Civil suit over the May 2025 article

On Tuesday, 27 October, the Warsaw Regional Court (Sąd Okręgowy w Warszawie) held another hearing in a civil suit brought by President Karol Nawrocki against Ringier Axel Springer Polska, the company that publishes Onet. The suit began with a first hearing on 15 September and concerns a May 2025 Onet article titled "Karol Nawrocki i tajemnice Grand Hotelu". That article alleged that Nawrocki, while working as a security guard at the Grand Hotel in Sopot, took part in arranging prostitutes for guests, citing anonymous sources described as former hotel security colleagues who said they were ready to testify. Nawrocki is seeking protection of his personal rights, and Jakub Kudła, head of the legal department at RASP, told PAP that the suit cites harm to the president's honour and dignity and asks for an apology. The article appeared while Nawrocki was one of the candidates in the presidential campaign, and he announced both this civil claim and a private criminal indictment after publication.

What the former colleague told the court

Natasza Geldon, a 39-year-old woman, worked in reception security and monitoring at the Sopot hotel during the summer seasons of 2006 and 2007, and Onet describes her as one of the informants behind its article. Testifying as a witness, she said that one evening while on reception duty she saw Nawrocki walk into the hotel with a woman and a man, then take them up in the lift to the guest floors. She called this unusual, adding that guests were not brought in that way and that escorting visitors was outside her duties. When Nawrocki came back down, she asked what was going on, and she recalled him saying one could earn extra by bringing in girls and asking whether she wanted to take part. She refused in sharp, mocking words, he replied "ok", and the matter fizzled out, as she put it. She told the court she had not discussed it with him again or with anyone except her mother, and that her description of the woman as a prostitute rested on that exchange rather than on how the woman looked.

She put the encounter in plain terms:

“It was unusual, because we did not bring guests into the hotel.”

A second witness

Łukasz Franczak, a college friend of the president who worked for an outside security firm at the hotel in the same period, also testified. According to Onet's account of his testimony, prostitutes did enter the hotel with guests, but he could not say which women they were, because guards did not check identities and judged only by sight. He denied knowing of a trafficking network, denied seeing Nawrocki call a prostitute, and denied that Nawrocki discussed payment for procuring them. Asked by the court whether prostitutes were at the hotel, he answered:

“Yes, there were. It is impossible to say directly which ones were prostitutes, because it is a hotel, and everything was discreet.”

Schedule and courtroom incident

The court postponed the case to 18 January 2027, when Nawrocki is due to give testimony as a party. The 27 October session was the first open to the public, though it could not be broadcast live, after earlier sessions were held behind closed doors. During questioning of Gazeta Wyborcza journalist Piotr Głuchowski, former head of the defence ministry Antoni Macierewicz walked into the courtroom without an entry pass. When asked whether he had one, he said he did not, and the court ordered him out.