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Man Charged With Attempted Rape at Conrad Hotel

 A 31-year-old man was charged with attempted rape at the Conrad Hotel in Battery Park City
A 31-year-old man was charged with attempted rape at the Conrad Hotel in Battery Park City
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Facebook/Conrad Hotel

BATTERY PARK CITY — A 31-year-old man tried to rape a woman at an upscale Battery Park City hotel, then fought off the woman's friend with a champagne bottle when she tried to intervene, prosecutors said.

Kareem Walker was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court Monday on charges of attempted rape, sexual abuse, assault and menacing after repeatedly attempting to force himself on a 20-year-old acquaintance in the Conrad Hotel at 102 North End Ave. early Sunday morning, according to his criminal complaint.

Prosecutors said Walker held his accuser down and tried to have sex with her at 6 a.m. Sunday while she pushed him away and kept telling him to stop.

When the accuser's friend came in the room, she also tried to pull Walker off of the victim, but Walker fought back, grabbing the friend's "shirt and body, thereby causing multiple lacerations and pain" to her chest and arms, the criminal complaint said.

Walker also allegedly grabbed a champagne bottle and threatened to harm the friend with it, prosecutors said.

According to the New York Daily News, Walker left the room, but returned to the hotel later in the morning to get his cellphone, and that's when police arrested him.

At his arraignment Monday, Walker's court-appointed Legal Aid attorney Stephanie Kaplan said her client had no criminal record, and noted that Walker's mother, who was in the court, was a 21-year veteran of the NYPD, the Daily News reported.

She argued that given his 6-foot-1 height and apparent strength, it would be unlikely that he would have been stopped from any attempts of forced sex, the Daily News reported.

"I do not believe these allegations in any way, shape, or form," Kaplan said in court, adding "It doesn't make sense, he's never been in trouble before."

The Conrad Hotel did not immediately return request for comment.

Walker is being held on $100,000 cash or $150,000 bond bail. He's due back in court on April 1.