Foreign power and arrogance run amuck in alleged atttacks on NYC hotel maids

Examiner

Leo Kapakos

On the heels of the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund last week who is accused of forcing himself on a maid at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan we now have another alleged attack by Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar, 74, the former head of Bank of Alexandria and current chairman of a leading Middle Eastern salt company. Mr. Omar, is accused of locking a 44-year-old maid inside his $900-a-night room at The Pierre on Sunday and sexually groping her.

Allegedly Omar called for room service requesting tissues and answered the door in his pajamas. When the maid - whom he had not specifically asked for - arrived at his 10th-floor room, he asked her to put the box of tissues on a table. As she moved toward the table, he locked the door. "He locked her in the room and had her trapped," a police source said. "He grabbed her breasts, groped her. He was grinding against her." Omar then asked the maid for her phone number, a police source said. After she gave him a made-up number he let go, and she fled the room. Omar was arrested at the hotel Monday afternoon and charged with sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment, forcible touching and harassment, officials said.

If these allegations hold up as true you have to ask yourself what goes on in the heads of these slime balls who can’t control themselves and think they can come to a foreign country and its open season on hotel maids. Then the stupidity factor of putting themselves in a situation where they are willing  to risk everything they have achieved knowing a single complaint can bring the world down on them.  Have they "gotten away with it" numerous times before where their victims were either embarrassed or too scared to report it and feel they can do it again? Do they think American working class women are “loose” and stupid and would be too intimidated to report it threatening them with “Do you know who I am – I can check into your background, etc.?

On the heels of the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund last week who is accused of forcing himself on a maid at the Sofitel Hotel in Manhattan we now have another alleged attack by Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar, 74, the former head of Bank of Alexandria and current chairman of a leading Middle Eastern salt company. Mr. Omar, is accused of locking a 44-year-old maid inside his $900-a-night room at The Pierre on Sunday and sexually groping her.

Allegedly Omar called for room service requesting tissues and answered the door in his pajamas. When the maid - whom he had not specifically asked for - arrived at his 10th-floor room, he asked her to put the box of tissues on a table. As she moved toward the table, he locked the door. "He locked her in the room and had her trapped," a police source said. "He grabbed her breasts, groped her. He was grinding against her." Omar then asked the maid for her phone number, a police source said. After she gave him a made-up number he let go, and she fled the room. Omar was arrested at the hotel Monday afternoon and charged with sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment, forcible touching and harassment, officials said.

If these allegations hold up as true you have to ask yourself what goes on in the heads of these slime balls who can’t control themselves and think they can come to a foreign country and its open season on hotel maids. Then the stupidity factor of putting themselves in a situation where they are willing  to risk everything they have achieved knowing a single complaint can bring the world down on them.  Have they "gotten away with it" numerous times before where their victims were either embarrassed or too scared to report it and feel they can do it again? Do they think American working class women are “loose” and stupid and would be too intimidated to report it threatening them with “Do you know who I am – I can check into your background, etc.?

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This is so far from this writer’s frame of reference that I’m trying to figure out what makes these guys tick. Think about the thought process that goes into just planning this out.  I’ll call downstairs for a maid, get naked or greet her in my pajamas, lock the door behind her and have my way. Clearly, these foreign dignitaries have a sense of power and entitlement because of their stature and rank in their own countries. But the unmitigated gall to come to a foreign country and think you can get away with sexually attacking their working women at random is the ultimate display of arrogance and disrespect of another country’s hospitality and complete disregard for the basic laws of civility (hello, it’s illegal to grope people in this country).

There is talk now of all hotels issuing panic buttons to maids to wear while they are on the job – a very prudent idea. The panic button would ring an alarm at the security desk so that help would arrive quickly if a maid is under attack in the hotel. Hotels should also have maids work in teams so an attack would be less likely. That said, an example needs to be set here. Short of castration because they are acting like wild dogs in heat no less then a a long prison term (preferably in general population) would suffice and send the right message to these predators if these accusations prove true.