"The sentencing of a former United Nations communications specialist to 15 years in prison Thursday was punctuated by the tears and eloquence of some of his 13 sexual assault victims who said being drugged and raped by a man who first won their trust left them shattered and hopeful that justice might help them heal.
When they were finished speaking, U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald told Karim Elkorany that it was particularly heinous that he engaged in the ‘raping of women who believed he was their friend’ as she sentenced him to the maximum he could face after he pleaded guilty to three charges in May...
‘This is not a ‘he said, she said’ case,’ Buchwald said as she read from some of the written statements submitted by victims who were attacked while he worked in international aid and foreign relations in the United States, Iraq and Egypt, among other locations...
The first charge to which Elkorany pleaded guilty pertained to his denial to the FBI that he raped Victim 1 after she reported it to the United Nations.
When Victim 2 spoke, she said Elkorany posed as a feminist who cared about issues facing women as he preyed upon friends and acquaintances.
‘All his talk about kindness and decency and caring for others was a sham,’ she said. Prosecutors said Victim 2 met Elkorany when she worked for a U.N. organization, and she was drugged and sexually assaulted on multiple occasions between 2014 and 2019 in the United States and Iraq.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz said Elkorany ‘hid behind his work,’ posing as a confidante of the women before the attacks and then shaming them afterward if they questioned what happened to make them feel it was their fault...
Prosecutors said Elkorany carried out some attacks from at least 2005 until April 2018 while working in international aid, development and foreign relations. From October 2013 to April 2016, he worked for the United Nations Children’s Fund in Iraq, and from July 2016 to April 2018 as a U.N. communications specialist in Iraq..."