No Money for a TIP? There is always Surprise Sex!
NEW HAVEN — A city alderman says he will seek the severest possible legal punishment for a pizza deliveryman charged with sexually assaulting the alderman’s female relative Thursday afternoon at the family’s home.
“The fact that he could come into my house and violate a woman there, it’s quite upsetting,” said Alderman Yusuf Ibn Shah, D-23. “I’ve never been so angry in my life.”
Police charged Elmustapha Moutaqi, 45, with fourth-degree sexual assault and breach of peace.
The complainant, who is in her mid-20s, sat beside Shah in their home on Batter Terrace Friday and recounted the events that unfolded after she called Marco Polo Pizza and Italian Restaurant on Crown Street at about 11:30 a.m. Thursday to order pizza.
The woman said she regularly places take-out orders with Marco Polo because it offers halal food prepared as prescribed by Muslim law. The Shah family is of the Muslim faith.
The complainant said she also recognized Moutaqi from previous deliveries. “I never found him to be suspicious,” she said.
She said when she met him in the foyer of the house, she gave him a credit card to pay for the pizza but then apologized for not having enough to pay him a tip.
“He said, ‘Hey, no big deal,’ and then he gave me a hug and kissed my forehead,” she stated.
“Then he said, ‘Can I have a real kiss?’ I said, ‘No,’ and I moved away. He pulled me back and tried to kiss my mouth. I’m still trying to pull away and he grabs my shoulder. He groped my right breast and my butt,” she said.
The woman said it was difficult defending herself while holding the pizza, but she was able to break away from him, back up, close the front door and lock it.Although the woman’s two brothers and a friend of theirs were in the house at the time, they did not hear the encounter happening, and she said she didn’t call out to them for help because “I was afraid they’d beat up the guy and they’d get charged with assault,” she said. “I figured I’d handle it the best I could.”
After the deliveryman left, she said, she immediately called the restaurant’s manager, who asked her, “Are you serious?” and said he would look into it and call her back in 10 minutes.
She didn’t wait. She called the police, who responded, she estimated, within 10 to 15 minutes. She said the restaurant manager did call back, but she didn’t answer because she was answering police questions.
The police put her in a patrol car and took her to Marco Polo, where she said she identified Moutaqi as her assailant after he pulled up in a vehicle.
When she told police she wanted to press charges, they handcuffed him.
She said she heard him tell police he had only been “kidding” and had done nothing wrong. But she thought to herself: “The joke is on you.”
Shah said one of his biggest concerns is that “obviously, Marco Polo isn’t doing a whole lot of screening” of its job applicants.
A man who answered the phone at Marco Polo Thursday said the restaurant’s owner, whom he identified as Monty Salen, was not available for comment. But the man said of Moutaqi: “They already fired him.”
The woman said, “I’m not going to let this overshadow or ruin my life. I’m not so traumatized that I’m unstable. I’m proud of my actions. I stood up for myself. I’m tougher than I look.”
Shah told her he’s proud of her, too. “I’ve trained her on self-defense,” he said. “She knows how to move.”Recalling the many times his family has ordered food from Marco Polo, Shah said, “It’s like ‘The Twilight Zone.’ We patronize them. We use them for family dinners. I never thought that something like this could happen. Think how many times you order pizza and have it delivered to your home. You don’t expect somebody to attack you.”
Shah added, “I ask God to give me the strength to forgive.” But he said he wants Moutaqi “punished as severely as possible.”
He also said he wants “peace” for the young woman. “She’ll probably be (emotionally) scarred for the rest of her life.”
That isn't how you play Marco Polo!
via hulu.com
