Accused Johnson & Wales student released after handing over passport

    PROVIDENCE, R.I. — One of the four Johnson & Wales University students charged in connection with the alleged sexual assault of two female freshmen at the university was released Monday after surrendering his passport.

    Yazeed Alasiri, 23, a senior who is majoring in engineering, is charged with second-degree sexual assault for allegedly groping an 18-year-old freshman student. He was released shortly after noon Monday by Rhode Island District Court Judge Anthony Capraro. No details about the conditions of his release were available.

    A bail hearing for the three other accused students was postponed until Tuesday. The hearing was delayed because the students, who are from Saudi Arabia, each need an Arabic interpreter to understand the proceedings, Craig Montecalvo, a Providence attorney representing 20-year-old sophomore Mohammed Aljohani, said as he left the courtroom on Monday.

    Aljohani and two other JWU students — Tareq Alharbi, 22, a freshman, and Mohammed A. Alsaqer, 20, a sophomore — are accused of raping another 18-year-old freshman at a loft apartment at 413 Central Ave., Pawtucket. They are each facing one count of first-degree sexual assault, a felony that carries a penalty of 10 years to life in prison.

    Pawtucket police say that the two female students met the men, whom one of the women knew from the Johnson & Wales, after dancing at the Colosseum nightclub in Providence late on the night of Oct. 1. The women told police they agreed to go with the men to the Pawtucket apartment that Alsaqer shared with Alasiri and another, unnamed roommate, to smoke marijuana.

    During the ride to Pawtucket, the young women were given open bottles of Corona beer. One of the women told police she declined a bottle, but drank a sip from her friend’s beer.

    At the apartment, the women told police, they smoked a joint and a hookah. One of the women told police that she started feeling weak and Alsaqer showed her the bathroom. But when she tried to leave, she told police, he pushed the door shut, put his hand over her mouth and raped her. She told police she later woke up in a bed in the rear of the apartment where she was raped by two other men.

    The other female student told police that she blacked out and woke to a man groping her in a bed. (The Journal does not name people who allege they are victims of sexual assault.)

    Police detectives searched the Pawtucket apartment and found assorted prescription medications, including the prescription painkiller hydrocodone, unidentified oval tablets engraved with H4, a clear plastic baggie containing a pale white rock type substance, disposable syringes and $130 in U.S. currency, according to a police search warrant affidavit filed in District Court.

Resource:http://www.providencejournal.com

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