On May 14, 2011, the complainant, a housekeeper at the Soñtel Hotel on West Street in Manhattan, reported to hotel security, and later to the NYPD, that she had been sexually assaulted by the defendant in his hotel suite. She first reported this incident to her immediate supervisor shortly after her interaction with the defendant, whose suite (Suite 2806) she had been assigned to clean. That supervisor summoned a more senior supervisor, to whom the complainant repeated her claim. The second supervisor notiñed hotel security and management personnel, who in turn noti fied the NYPD. NYPD uniformed police officers and detectives interviewed the complainant and had her transported to a local hospital for a medical examination later that afternoon.
In substance, the complainant reported to NYPD detectives, and later to prosecutors, that shortly after she entered the defendant’s suite to perform her housekeeping duties, he emerged naked from the suite’s bedroom, approached her, and grabbed her breasts without her consent. Ac cording to the complainant, the defendant closed the door to the suite, forced her into the bedroom, pushed her onto the bed, and attempted to forcibly insert his penis into her mouth, which caused his penis to make contact with her closed lips. The complainant stated that the defendant then physi cally forced her further into the suite’s interior by pushing her down a narrow hallway. According to her, he pulled up her uniform dress, partially pulled down her stockings, reached under her panties, and grabbed the outside of her vaginal area forcefully. Finally, the complainant reported that the defendant physically forced her to her knees, forcibly inserted his penis into her mouth, held her head, and ejaculated. This sexual act, the complainant stated, occurred at the end of the suite’s inte rior hallway, in close proximity to the suite’s full bathroom. According to the complainant, she in stantly spat the defendant’s semen onto the suite’s interior hallway carpet, and continued to do so as she promptly fled from the suite.
The NYPD ascertained that the defendant was scheduled to depart on an Air France flight at _lohn F. Kennedy Airport that was headed for Europe. He was asked to disembark from that flight at approximately 4:45 p.1n. by detectives assigned to the Port Authority Police Department, and was eventually taken into custody.
On the date of the incident, and for several days afterward, the complainant was interviewed by detectives assigned to the NYPD’s Manhattan Special Victims Squad and by other experienced investigators and prosecutors, including members of the Ofñce’s Sex Crimes Unit. As in all cases where a Witness’ testimony is essential to prove the crime, the prosecutors who interviewed the complainant explained to her that her past and present circumstances would be thoroughly ex amined. The complainant expressed het willingness to cooperate with prosecutors and to be truth ful. In the course of these initial interviews with prosecutors and police, which probed the details of the incident as well as the complainant’s background and history, the complainant appeared truthful. Het account of the incident was plausible, and as she repeated it on different dates to Special Vic tims detectives and prosecutors, it was materially consistent.
Investigation between the time of the incident and May 18 revealed no red flags in the complai nant’s background. She had a work history at the Soñtel Hotel of more than three years, her employee Ele contained no incident reports or disciplinary history, and her supervisors indicated that she was a model employee. She had no criminal history and had been granted asylum by the United States Immi gration Court. Although she noted that she had originally entered the United States using a visa and papers that had been issued to a different person, she readily admitted this fact. Finally, available evi dence indicated that the complainant had no foreknowledge of the defendant’s stay at the hotel that might have enabled her to orchestrate an encounter between them, and that she entered the defen dant’s suite believing it to be empty.
Other evidence was consistent with a nonconsensual sexual encounter between the defen dant and the complainant. As described above, the complainant made a prompt outcry to two supervisors n1Evidence that a sexual assault victim promptly complained about an incident may be admitted to corroborate that a sexual assault occurred, :ee People u. McDaniel, 81 N.Y.2d 10, 16 (1993), although it cannot independently establish the elements of the crime., both of whom were interviewed by a prosecutor within the first 48 hours of the investi gation, and who reported that she appeared upset. A preliminary result from DNA testing con ducted by the Ofñce of Chief Medical Examiner (“OCME”) established that several stains located on the upper portion of the complainant’ s hotel uniform dress contained semen that yielded the de fendant’s DNA. Although this preliminary forensic ñndíng did not resolve whether the encounter between the defendant and the complainant was forcible, it established that the defendant had en gaged in a sexual act with the complainant. Early investigation also indicated that the encounter be tween the complainant and the defendant was brief, suggesting that the sexual act was not likely a product of a consensual encounter.
Preindictrnent investigation indicated that the defendant had left the hotel in a hurried manner n2Investigators and prosecutors interviewed the hotel employees who assisted the defendant in the lobby when he checked out at approximately 12:28 p.m., and also interviewed the hotel front office manager. , but it was not known at that time where the defendant went immediately after his departure from the hotel n3Not until the june 6, 2011 arraignment did the defense reveal that the defendant’s precise location in the time period between his departure from the hotel and arrival atjohn F. Kennedy Airport was a Manhattan restaurant located at Sixth Avenue between 51” and 52"“ Streets.. What was known, however, was that later in the afternoon of May 14, 2011, the defendant had boarded an Air France flight at john F. Kennedy Airport destined for Europe, and that he was a French citizen. Prior to the defendant’s arraignment, it was also ascertained that as a French national, he would not be subject to extradition for purposes of a criminal prosecution in the United States.
Based on multiple interviews with the complainant and an assessment of all of the evidence available at the time, the NYPD detectives and prosecutors who spoke with the complainant during this phase of the investigation each arrived independently at the same conclusion. Each found the complainant to be credible and believed that criminal charges were warranted. Accordingly, the case was presented to a grand and the defendant was indicted.