Tel-Chai Nation

Well look what we have here: a former bank exectutive from Egypt is now under arrest in New York for sexually assaulting a maid at another hotel, just a few weeks after Dominique Strauss-Khan's scandal:

NEW YORK (AP) — The former chairman of one of Egypt’s major banks has been arrested on charges of sexually abusing a maid at a Manhattan hotel, just weeks after the arrest of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on similar allegations.

Police say Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar was arrested at the Pierre Hotel on Monday morning.

The 74-year-old businessman is accused of sexually abusing the maid and holding her against her will inside his hotel room.

Police say the incident happened Sunday night.

Police spokesman Paul Browne says detectives found the complainant to be credible.

Omar is the former chairman of Egypt’s Bank of Alexandria.

The NY Daily News says that a supervisor tried to delay her reporting to police, and has been rightly suspended:

The Pierre hotel suspended a supervisor who stopped a maid from immediately reporting that she was groped by a guest - and its housekeepers will soon be getting panic buttons.

The get-tough moves came a day after Egyptian businessman Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar, 74, was charged with pawing the body of the 44-year-old maid in his $900-a-night room.

The maid escaped his clutches and quickly told a supervisor, "who said something to the effect that the best way to report this is to notify the security director," NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

It was Sunday and the director was off, so the woman - a mother of four from Ghana who is a devout Pentecostal Christian - was sent home without any action being taken.

"It's an absolute outrage," said Peter Ward, president of the Hotel & Motel Trades Council.

"You don't take a person who has just been assaulted and send them home. You help them.

"This customer continued to roam around the hotel, continued to have access to the bar, continued to have access to room service after he assaulted somebody simply because some manager tried to sweep it under the rug."

We can guess what happened here: political correctness regarding Islam came in. It's very fortunate that justice prevailed, the culprit was jailed and the would-be supervisor hung up to dry. Plus, they're giving their employees emergency signals.

But look at the contrast between bail prices:

Strauss-Kahn is free on $6 million bail and bond and is under house arrest in Tribeca, where he ventured out to see his lawyer Tuesday.

Omar, the former head of the Bank of Alexandria, was arraigned Tuesday night on charges of sex abuse and forcible touching. He was ordered held in lieu of $50,000 bond or $25,000 cash bail. He did not enter a plea.

They're charging him less than DSK? I may not know enough about this kind of pricing, but it still looks fishy and disgusting that they're charging Omar less to post bail.

Update: this site has a mug shot photo of Omar.

Labels: Egypt, islam, misogyny, New York, United States