NEW YORK CITY — A dissident Chinese billionaire with a $68 million apartment overlooking Central Park raped a woman he forced to be his assistant while taking her passport to prevent her from leaving, according to a $20 million lawsuit filed by the woman in Manhattan Supreme Court Monday.
The woman, Rui Ma, 28, accused Guo Wengui, 50, of luring her from one of his “China-based affiliated entities” to New York under the guise of a business trip, before telling her she was now his personal assistant, could no longer return to China and turned abusive, the lawsuit stated.
“Over a period of several years [Wengui] carefully cultivated an image of himself as a cultured political dissident who stands up to — and exposes the rampant corruption within — the tyrannical government of the People’s Republic of China,” Ma charged in the suit.
“In fact, this crafted fiction serves not only to satisfy the ego of [Wengui] and those who affiliate with him; it further provides [Wengui] with a means to mask the campaign of intimidation and terror he unleashes regularly upon those few of his employees, like [the victim], who dare not submit themselves entirely to his domination.”
Wengui — who the suit claims also goes by the name Miles Kwok and owns a $68 million apartment in the Sherry-Netherland Hotel overlooking Central Park — has accused some of China’s top officials of corruption and is currently in living in New York on a tourist visa while he tries to get permanent residency, the New York Times reported on Sept. 7.
While portraying himself as a whistleblower, Wengui was “terrorizing” Ma, choosing when she could use her phone and computer, controlling her social media accounts, forcing her to work constantly with little sleep and calling her a “pig” and a “whore” whenever she made a mistake, she said in the lawsuit.
Wengui first attacked Ma inside the "cinema room" of his New York apartment, removing his pants before tearing at her skirt and battering her in the process, the suits says.
Soon after, he raped Ma after pressuring her to drink alcohol, the suits notes, though it's unclear whether that incident occurred in New York.
“After this violence concluded, [Wengui] left [Ma] alone, bleeding in her bed,” the lawsuit states.
“[Ma] continued to live in constant fear of [Wengui] thereafter, remaining awake for as long as she could muster for fear that [Wengui] would again attack.”
He then raped her a second time before she was able to escape from his London home and flee to the Chinese Embassy, court papers stated.
Ma said she then spoke with Chinese authorities about the allegations.
An NYPD spokesman said the department did not have any records of a complaint made against Wengui.
A lawyer for Wengui said he is not representing him in this case and declined to comment.
