MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A man charged with savagely beating a nurse who refused to dance with him at a Midtown bar pleaded guilty on Monday and will be sentenced to 16 years in prison, prosecutors said.
Mbarek Lafrem, 32, admitted he followed the 29-year-old victim into the womens' bathroom at Social Bar on Eighth Avenue and pushed his way into her stall, beating her while pulling off her clothing, prosecutors said. He fractured her skull and broke her jaw, nose and eye socket in the March 11, 2010, incident.
Lafrem had initially claimed the woman attacked him first and that his violence was an act of self-defense. He rejected an earlier plea deal at the last minute, refusing to admit guilt and saying he was so drunk that he did not remember anything that happened that night.
"Only me and her and God know what happened," he said, while backing out of a plea arrangement in February. "There are no witnesses."
Lafrem, a construction worker from Pennsylvania, changed his tune Monday as he pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and attempted sexual abuse in the first degree in exchange for 16 years in prison.
He had been facing up to 20 years in prison if convicted of attempted murder.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said the attack was "quick and brutal," and that detectives acted swiftly in apprehending Lafrem, who had fled the scene.
He is due to be sentenced on September 1 by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ronald Zweibel.
