student says she was raped at NY Plaza Hotel

Mustapha Ouanes with his wife (left) and one of his lawyers (right) outside Manhattan Supreme Court on the first day of his trial on Monday. He is charged with raping two women at the Plaza Hotel in January 2010.

Accused attacker works for Saudi Arabian prince

A Canadian businessman working for a Saudi Arabian prince lured two female bartenders to the Plaza Hotel after a night of carousing and raped one of them, prosecutors charged Monday.

Mustapha Ouanes, 60, who works for a construction company and travels as a member of the unnamed prince’s entourage, is accused of sexually assaulting the former Seton Hall student in January 2010, after she passed out in his fifth-floor room.

“She woke up to this defendant on top of her kissing her mouth,” Assistant District Attorney Samuel David said in his opening arguments at Ouanes’ Manhattan trial. “She was unable to get him off, instead she passed back out again.”

When the woman, then 26, woke up a second time, “he was having sex with her,” David said.

Ouanes’ lawyers argued the sex was consensual and said their well-heeled client, who has never been arrested before and whose wife sat in the courtroom, was set up.

The accuser, who briefly took the stand Monday, became emotional as she identified Ouanes and had to leave the witness stand for several minutes.