Yesterday, Manhattan prosecutors accused a Canadian businessman of raping a Brooklyn bartender at the Plaza Hotel in 2010. And the businessman happens to be part of a "member of the traveling entourage of a Saudi prince."
The trial of Mustapha Ouanes, 60, started yesterday, and ADA Samuel David explained that Ouanes invited two young women to his hotel room at the Plaza for breakfast (the trio met at a West Village bar, and then they went to another bar; at one point, the accuser smoked hashish without Ouanes). In his opening statement, David said, "As far as the two of them were aware, breakfast really meant breakfast," but the accuser, who had passed out, "woke up to this defendant on top of her kissing her mouth... She was unable to get him off, instead she passed back out again." Her friend, who found her leggings pulled down, called hotel security, who allegedly found the women in the room's bathroom too "frantic" and "devastated" to explain what happened.
However, Ouanes's defense lawyer Frederica Miller said greed was motivating the accuser and her friend, "They believed he was a deep pocket. He paid for their drinks, he paid for their cab ride, he took them to The Plaza." The Times reports that Miller "described Mr. Ouanes as an Algerian-born engineer and Canadian citizen who works for a construction company that has the Saudi royal family as a client. He spends about half of his working time assisting a Saudi prince, she said, including traveling with him," although it's unclear what that work is.
Miller also questioned whether the accuser, who is a bartender, could have passed out because she has a "functional tolerance" to alcohol (per the Post, she "was portrayed by lawyers from both sides as a regular at both bars she went to the night of the alleged rape"). The Daily News noted, "The accuser, who briefly took the stand Monday, became emotional as she identified Ouanes and had to leave the witness stand for several minutes."
