Saudi National Acquitted In NYC Gay Sex Assault Trial

In NYC 27-year-old Saudi national Naief Al-mateiry has been acquitted after a trial during which prosecutors alleged he sexually assaulted a 69-year-old man he met outside the Townhouse, a gay bar on East 58th Street, as reported by Melissa Grace for the Daily News:  “Al-mateiry didn’t testify but his lawyer claimed he was just a gigolo and the case amounted to ‘rough sex for money between two consenting adults.’”

In reporting on the trial prior to the defendant’s acquittal Laura Italiano wrote for the New York Post:

Al-mateiry, 26, is fighting charges of kidnapping and rape brought by a 70-year-old freelance consultant who says he was beaten, held captive and repeatedly sodomized in his own west 90s apartment during a gay-date rape from hell 14 months ago. Both sides agree the two men met at the upscale, east side piano bar Townhouse on a winter night in 2009. “The defendant told [the victim] that he’d like him to be his daddy-o,” prosecutor Maxine Rosenthal told the jury in opening statements. “Well, I’ll be your daddy, but I won’t be your sugar daddy,” the prosecutor said the older man answered. But once back at the victim’s apartment, Al-mateiry allegedly transformed into a sexual terrorist, choking the victim, raping him repeatedly, beating him with a broken hanger and sodomizing him with a three-foot-long shoe-horn, Rosenthal said. Al-mateiry then forced him to two neighborhood ATMs — insisting he had a knife — and had him withdraw a total of $1,200. Defense lawyer Henry Asbill dismissed any violence as “consensual, routine S&M” and called the victim a flat out liar.

The Townhouse, owned by gay nightlife mogul Bob DeBenedictis, describes itself “as a gay bar that appreciates older gentlemen of exquisite taste along with those who admire them.”  In the September 22, 1996 issue of the New York Times Magazine, John Wykert wrote:

With the graying of the gay population, New York City has an increasing number of established “wrinkle rooms.” The GH Club, Regent’s, Town House, Pegasus and Oscar Wilde come to mind. Had Holleran not wallowed in self-pity but explored these generally friendly bars, he would have discovered the “gero” phenomenon. Somebody – actually, hordes of attractive young men – seems to love you when you are old and gay. Gerontophilia (love of old age) is the name of the game. In some cases, the older, the grayer, the more popular.

Kilian Melloy, a reporter for the gay online news site edge, recently alleged that The Townhouse “is reputed to be a ‘wrinkle bar,’ or an establishment where older gents meet up with younger men, sometimes for paid companionship.”

DeBenedictis — who since at least 1974 has been behind many of New York City’s private clubs used by gay men as sex venues according to some previous media reports –  had a verdict returned against him last November for over $50 million by a California jury in a class action lawsuit involving his role at Global Vision Products, Inc. which until recently marketed and sold the hair loss remedy Avacor.