There is an “emergency” of violence against women and girls in the US, an activist charged on Saturday, pointing to a crop of alleged heinous sexual acts, including the fatal drugging and rape of a Fashion Institute of Technology student, as proof of a “crisis.”
Lawyer and activist Reshma Saujani, founder of nonprofits Moms First US and Girls Who Code, shared a tearjerking Instagram statement Saturday in light of the indictment of Moises Freire, 19, the Bronx man prosecutors claim drugged Annabel Richter, 20, with fentanyl and raped her while she was unconscious and dying inside her FIT dorm in March.
“Along with the headlines about Cornell and UChicago, this feels like too much to carry,” Saujani, who was the first Indian American woman to run for congress in 2010, wrote.
“One part that haunts me: prosecutors say he sent photos of her unconscious to his friends before he called for help. It’s the same thing we saw in the Cornell group chat. Women and girls are facing a crisis of sexual violence in this country, and we cannot keep treating it as normal.
“How many more stories like Annabel’s before we treat this as the emergency it is?”
Richter and her roommate believed Freire was giving them cocaine from Mexico when they consumed the deadly drug in their room in the all girls’ Nagler Hall in Chelsea on March 18, according to prosecutors.
Both women immediately passed out, and Freire allegedly proceeded to rape Richter — snapping photos of her half naked body to send to his friends when he finished, according to recently unveiled court records.
He allegedly waited 45 minutes to call campus security to take the women to the hospital after they began overdosing and then lied to first responders — saying they just had too much to drink and he didn’t realize Richter was unconscious until after he had sex with her, prosecutors said.
Freire’s friend, Brian Peralta Cabrera, 18, of Queens, was separately hit with narcotics conspiracy charges for alleging helping Freire get the lethal fentanyl.
Freire and Peralta Cabrera were first arrested in March. They pleaded not guilty to an initial set of charges that did not include the rape allegation and remain in custody.
Freire is due back in court Oct. 28 to be arraigned on upgraded charges of distributing a controlled substance with the intent to commit rape, along with other narcotics charges. He faces a minimum of 20 years in prison, and a maximum of life if convicted.
A third man, Harry Rosales Pino, has pleaded guilty to narcotics distribution resulting in death.
“Hearing about the situation as an alumni hit hard and was very heartbreaking especially since she was so young,” FIT alumni Amanda McCormack, 23, told The Post.
“I feel that this is coming to light at the same time as the Cornell case, which is also sparking controversy right now. At the end of the day what she went through was horrible and I think these type of cases deserve more justice for the victims.”
The twisted events prosecutors described at FIT come as other instances of alleged sexual violence have sparked outrage at Cornell University and the University of Chicago.
A former Cornell University student, only identified as Jane Doe, filed a bombshell lawsuit against seven Chi Phi fraternity members she claims gang raped her. In a sickening frat group chat, one frat bro allegedly said there was “free p–sy upstairs.” Another replied: “Shop still open?”
All seven of the brothers have denied raping Doe, and none have been charged with any crimes.
A woman attending an Alpha Epsilon Pi frat party near the University of Chicago was allegedly sexually assaulted in a bathroom earlier this month as partygoers cheered her alleged attacker on.
Neither the alleged victim nor the man accused of attacking the woman are students at the university.
Jonathan Pierce, a spokesman for the national AEPi organization, said the alleged assailant wasn’t a member of the fraternity and said when members of the frat heard about the incident they offered assistance to her.
UChicago said they have identified a person of interest, but they couldn’t reveal his name since police were still probing the incident and charges had not been filed.
