Updated: 8.46 pm
A FORMER GOLDMAN Sachs banker knocked an Irish woman to the ground before raping her after a party in 2013, a court in New York heard today.
Jason Lee (38), a former managing director at the firm, was arrested in August 2013 after the woman, an Irish student then aged 20, accused him of attacking her in a bathroom at the home he had rented with his wife in the summer resort town of East Hampton.
During opening statements at his trial today, Assistant District Attorney Kerriann Kelly said Lee broke through a bathroom door while naked — knocking the woman to the ground — and jumped on top of her and raped her as she attempted to fight him off.
“It was a contest of wills,” Kelly said. “Unfortunately, the defendant won.”
Lee has pleaded not guilty and is free on $100,000 bail. He had opted for a non-jury trial before Suffolk County Court Judge Barbara Kahn.
His lawyer, Andrew Lankler, told the judge that the sex was consensual. He said several other people were in the living room, just feet from the bathroom, and no one heard any screaming.
“The evidence is consistent with consensual sex, perhaps regrettable consensual sex,” Lankler said in his opening remarks.
Lankler said photographs taken after the arrest prove that it was not an attack because Lee “doesn’t have a scratch on him. Not a mark.”
Alleged attack happened after Lee’s birthday party
The alleged victim, who was travelling on a J1 visa, was out with her brother and some friends at a Hamptons night club on the night in question, Kelly said.
She met Lee and one of his friends at the club and partied with them until about 4 am, when they all went back to the house that Lee was renting in East Hampton.
The Irishwoman and one of her friends jumped in a pool at the house in their underwear, Kelly said.
Lee jumped in the pool naked, which made the girls uncomfortable, so they returned to the house.
The victim was changing her clothes in the bathroom when the attack occurred, the court was told.
A Goldman Sachs spokesman said Lee, who had worked in the equity capital markets department, left the firm last year. His current employment status was not clear.
Kelly said the woman was treated at a hospital following the incident and showed injuries consistent with being sexually assaulted.
She is expected to return to the United States to testify during the trial.
Originally published: 8.41 am
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