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Man gets 40-45 years for raping BU student Boston Herald, Saturday, January 27, 2001 By David Weber A South End man was sentenced to 40-to-45 years in prison yesterday after a jury convicted him on all counts in his trial for raping a Boston University freshman 16 months ago in her Fenway dormitory. After 13 hours of deliberation at the end of a 10-day trial, the Suffolk Superior Court jury convicted Abdelmajid Akouk, 33, of two counts of aggravated rape, one count each of home invasion, kidnapping, assault with a dangerous weapon (a knife), making threats and indecent assault and battery. Judge James McDaniel imposed the sentence after hearing the victim, now 19 years old, deliver a victim-impact statement in the packed courtroom. "This is the most devastating experience I could ever have imagined, and I know there is nothing worse than it," she said. "Some days are decent. I only think about rape five or six times. Other days are worse, and I will think about it every second." After the verdicts, the victim's father criticized Akouk's defense lawyers, who claimed the young woman engaged their client in consensual sex, then fabricated the rape story after friends spotted her escorting Akouk out of Loretto hall, an Emmanuel College dorm rented by BU. "When a person has the courage to testify in a sexual assault or rape, it unfortunately appears that the victim is put on trial," the father said. "It just doesn't seem appropriate that it should be that way." At the same time, he praised prosecutor Edmond Zabin and Boston University police Lt. Robert Molloy and his officers, who arrested Akouk within minutes of the crime and conducted an investigation that yielded damning DNA evidence and Akouk's fingerprints inside a shower stall where the victim said the rape began. Akouk, a native of Morocco who worked for the Gentle Giant Moving Co., showed no emotion when the verdicts were read and when the judge imposed the sentence. The victim testified that Akouk hid behind a shower curtain in her dorm's second-floor bathroom and yanked her into the stall at knifepoint about 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 12, 1999, just two weeks after she began her freshman year at BU. She said Akouk raped her there, then forced her into her dorm room after becoming alarmed when another student walked into the bathroom. Defense attorneys Mary Ames and John Galvin tried to score points with the jury when the victim's roommate testified that she woke up while Akouk and the victim were having intercourse and thought they simply were having consensual sex. The victim had testified that she did not scream or try to wake up her roommate out of fear that Akouk would stab them both. --Reprinted with permission of the Boston Herald.