Group Home Teen Sentenced for Gang Raping a Woman
“A group home teen who gang raped a woman in Chinatown was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Friday.
Sanat Asliev had previously pleaded guilty along with Erik Pek and Emanuel Burrowes, all 17 now, though 16 at the time of the attack, to the rape and beating of the 33-year-old woman at about 3.30am on June 1, 2015.
Burrowes had previously been sentenced to 15 years and Pek to 14 years.
Asliev could have been sentenced to as little as five years, but Justice Maxwell Wiley imposed the maximum because of the severity of the attack, reports the New York Times.
The woman met the youths in an internet cafe in New York’s Chinatown in the early hours of June 1. They then took her to the stairwell of a nearby apartment building, where they assaulted her – an event that she says has scarred her for life, according to the NY Post.
‘I wake up in the middle of the night gasping for breath,’ the woman said in a statement that was read to the court in April. ‘I can’t breathe because I’m having a massive panic attack in my sleep.’
She said she was ‘intoxicated and alone’ but that ‘shouldn’t have been a green light for predators,’ according to the New York Daily News.
The woman was high on ketamine and ‘barely conscious,’ the Post earlier reported, when Eric Pek, Sanat Asliev and Emanuel Burrowes approached her.
They had all previously slipped out of a home for juvenile offenders in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
They then groped her repeatedly and took her to the stairwell of a nearby apartment building where they beat her and raped her, prosecutor Amanda Goun said.
The woman was left bruised, bloodied and dazed after the hour-long ordeal – but the emotional damage done has lingered much longer.
In the victim impact statement Goun read to the court in April, the victim said: ‘It has not only emotionally scarred me forever, but it has impacted my friends and family more than I ever would have expected.’
It also affected her standing in society, she wrote: ‘I am now a woman who has been shamed, even though the attacks were not my fault. I’m looked down upon because I’m a victim of rape and assault.’
After raping the woman, robbing her of her keys, phone and credit cards and leaving her in the stairwell, the three boys then let themselves into her Chelsea apartment.
Pek allegedly shouted ‘Hey baby!’ as he let himself in but the three fled when they saw victim’s male roommate.
They then returned to the home, which was run by the charity Boys Town
‘I’m sorry,’ Pek told the court. ‘I ask her to forgive me, to seek mercy on me, please forgive me.’
Pek’s lawyer said he should be treated more leniently than an adult.
But Justice Maxwell Wiley was not impressed, jailing the youth for 14 years – one short of the 15 maximum allowed under his plea deal.
Sentencing Pek at the State Supreme Court in Manhattan, he said: ‘The conduct in this case went beyond rash, went beyond dangerous, went beyond reprehensible. It was borderline sadistic.’
He told Pek to ‘try to make himself a better person.’
Pek, Asilev and Burrowes all pleaded guilty to rape, robbery and burglary.
Asliev and Burrowes are expected to be sentenced to between five and 15 years later this year.
Pek had been sent to the home after being found guilty of trespassing and possession of stolen property.
The home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, closed down shortly after the attack and investigators have found severe lapses in security as well as staff shortages.
Three employees have been charged with falsifying records after it was found evidence that staff had failed to monitor their charges through the night and had doctored records to cover up mistakes.”
[Daily Mail 6/11/16 by Kiri Blakeley, James Wilkinson, and Chris Summers]
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