Indian American techie convicted of sexually assaulting 'date'

An Indian American IT executive has been convicted of sexually assaulting, choking and beating a woman he met on a dating website and faces up to 25 years in jail, the media reported.

Sanjay Tripathy, 48, of North Carolina was found guilty this week of criminal sex act, sex abuse, assault, strangulation and unlawful imprisonment in connection to the June 15, 2016 attack on the 38-year-old woman at a hotel in Times Square, the New York Daily News reported.

The father of two children is scheduled to be sentenced on July 18. Tripathy was ordered held without bail by Justice Erika Edwards after his conviction in Manhattan Supreme Court.

He met the 38-year-old victim on a website that pairs rich older men with attractive younger women. Tripathy had advertised himself on the site "as a catch with $10 million in the bank".

The victim said that on the day of the incident she and Tripathy were on a date. He had asked her to his room with the promise of a "gift" after they had drinks at the hotel bar.

He is reported to have turned violent on reaching the room. The woman said he threatened to kill her before he "punched her in the face some 20 times and forced her to perform oral sex on him".

"He said, 'I am going to kill you. You are going to die'," Assistant District Attorney Kristen Baraiola told jurors, describing how blood from the victim's face splattered the hotel room walls and bedspread as Tripathy pummelled her.

"When the woman rejected his advances, the executive allegedly beat her, resulting in her split lip, broken tooth, two black eyes and a bloody nose. She saw blood literally fly out of her face after being punched," Baraiola added.

However, the man claimed that they had consensual rough sex that she accepted payment for.

Jurors were shown the photos of her badly swollen and bruised face and neck. The victim said she was choked to the point she thought she would die. Later, she went across the street to a parked NYPD van and reported that Tripathy had tried to kill her.

The woman was present in the courtroom when the verdict was read.

Tripathy's lawyer Franklin Rothman said after the verdict that the "photos that graphically depicted the extent of the beating were too much to overcome".

"I think they told a story, but only a partial story, of what really happened inside of that hotel room... I disagree with it (the verdict) wholeheartedly and I think they got this one wrong," he said.

--IANS

soni/vm