SEX SLAVE?

From recordonline.com:

 

“Stewart Rosenwasser, the former Orange County prosecutor and judge who reportedly died by suicide when FBI agents attempted to arrest him this week, had been accused of taking thousands in bribes connected to an allegedly fraudulent prosecution, which tied him to a man whose sister claims she was used as his "sex slave."

Rosenwasser had been indicted on charges of bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, honest services wire fraud, extortion under color of official right and making false statements.”

From The NY Post Dec. 17, 2023

A Jordanian woman who moved to New York as a teen was repeatedly raped by her brother and treated as his “sexual slave” for decades, a sickening new lawsuit claims.

Eman Soudani, 63, says her former restaurateur brother, Mout’z Soudani, 72, horrifically abused her while isolating her, denying her educational opportunities and subjecting her to “economic servitude,” according to the recently filed Manhattan federal court suit.

Mout’z “forcibly took Plaintiff’s virginity in 1977, when she was 17, just months after she first arrived in the United States from Jordan” — and she got an abortion after he impregnated her in 1989, the lawsuit alleges.

“He continued to treat her as a sexual slave for decades, until October 2022, when Plaintiff finally escaped Soudani’s domination,” court documents claim.

But the defendant says his sibling accuser is nothing but a liar.

The defendant’s lawyer pointed The Post to news of the recent guilty plea by the plaintiff’s son arising from a felony charge of embezzling more than $1.6 million from the defendant in a crypto currency scheme.

“Eman Soudani’s civil complaint is absolutely false and complete fiction,” insisted Mout’z’s lawyer, Michael Burke. “He emphatically denies each and every allegation.”

Eman’s shocking civil complaint was filed last month, under the expiring Adult Survivors Act, by lawyer Arthur Middlemiss.

She claims in her suit that her brother treated her as an indentured servant and controlled all aspects of her life for 45 years while sexually abusing her.

The pair lived together at various times including in Rockland County and upstate Montgomery, the lawsuit says.

At the age of 17, she became the primary caregiver to her brother’s three sons — and that’s when her sibling forced her to have sex with him against her will, the complaint said.

Mout’z’s first wife, Helen, was brutally murdered in September 1977 and found dead outside the couple’s now-closed Aegean Grotto restaurant, according to the suit and the Journal News.

The murder was never solved, the suit said.

Her brother eventually arranged for her marriage with an Egyptian man, Mohammed Elkarim, the suit said. They had a son and later divorced, and she moved back to her brother’s house, court papers allege.

“Soudani carried out his sexual attacks against the plaintiff using forcible compulsion,
undue influence, overt threats, duress, coercion, physical force, and intimidation,” the suit says.

Mout’z also “threatened and inflicted physical violence” against Eman and her son, Martin, the complaint said.

Eman also said her brother threatened to kill her son on “multiple occasions” and more than once pointed a gun at them.

She said she felt trapped because she and Martin feared for their lives, according to the suit.

Her brother later married Elizabeth Rutkay, a woman about 10 years his senior and who had worked at his restaurant. She had a worsening heart condition and eventually died, the suit says.

In the complaint, the plaintiff said she escaped her brother’s clutches by fleeing to Colorado last year.

After she fled to Colorado, Soudani accused her of stealing more than $300,000 in cash from him, and she was charged with grand larceny in March of this year, the suit said.

But the Orange County District Attorney’s Office reduced the felony count to a misdemeanor, and the case was later dismissed by the Town of Goshen criminal court, the complaint said.

Mout’z’s lawyer, Burke, said both Eman and her son Martin fled to Colorado once Mout’z became “suspicious of the son’s fraud.

Martin Soudani, 34, was arraigned in Orange County Court on an indictment charging him with grand larceny and money laundering earlier this year for allegedly embezzling $1.62 million from Mout’z over a five-year period.

Court records show that Martin is set to be sentenced in the case early next year.

Eman’s suit seeks at least $75,000 from her brother in compensatory and punitive damages for sex abuse and unjustment enrichment and related counts.

“I’m thankful for the support of everyone who helped me escape a lifetime of unspeakable abuse. Having taken these steps I encourage those who have had similar experiences to be brave and come forward,” Eman Soudani told The Post.

Incestuous sex slave and unsolved murder? Huh. How’d I miss that one the first go-round? There’s always some darker reason for such seemingly blatant and unexplainable courses of action that a respected prosecutor and his “client” would take in purely monetary matters. The paper trail of endorsed checks and text messages (detailed in the indictment) between Stewy and the brother of said “sex slave” Mout’z Soudani Sr. is dizzying. Constant warnings to Soudani by Rosenwasser to “stop texting.” go unheeded. He kept at it. And Stewart kept cashing the checks. The amount in bribes - $63,000 is not much. It in no way warrants throwing away a long career that ended in what looks like either “suicide by cop” or by Stewart’s own hand. Why?

I posed this question to Milawyer. “He could not face the disgrace.” was his immediate answer. This is the simplest answer. Does Occam’s razor apply? Maybe. Maybe not. Things don’t quite add up. The so-called “disgrace” may involve other factors. But back to Andrew and Elsie.

Q. Are you able to read or write?

A. No.

Although Great Grandpa Andy comes off as articulate on the stand, he freely admits to being illiterate. I knew this fact from a notation in the 1900 census. This would become relevant later as a note from Mr. Velie warning Andy to “stay out of the yard.” is introduced into evidence.

Q. Could you read the note?

A. No.

The plausible deniability of Mr. Velie’s warning to the autodidact Andy, as he sensed a cuckold “in the yard” doesn’t quite hold up. My Great Grandma Elsie could read. She also saw the note. As the lawyers spared, drilling in on the fact that my great grandparents hadn’t had sex in over a decade, they felt the need to over-explain the “living as man and wife” euphemism.

Q. Did you continue to have sexual intercourse with your wife?

A. Once she bolted the door, I got the hint.

Here is where it gets tricky legally speaking. Who was the abandoned victim? Was Elsie refusing her husband the marital bed or was Andrew refusing to do his conjugal duty as a husband? My grandfather realized in 1927 that the only way he could hold his now absent old man accountable to support his mother with “$25 per week and deed to the house” was to bring a formal complaint before the court. According to Elsie, “I never refused the man.”

Sex is usually behind most aberrant behavior that adults find themselves trapped by – fumbling in the dark recesses of community and family. What was going on in the Soudani and Rosenwasser households over the years sexual speaking? Was GG Andrew innocently boarding at the 137-acre Velie farm, pasturing some calves, and/or banging the landlady, as her husband helplessly stood by? As I’ve said many times before, in discussing local gossip, bodies are going to start popping up.

The unsolved 1977 murder case of Soudani senior’s wife Helen was reopened yesterday by the Town of Ramapo police. We’ve only scratched the surface. Stay tuned.