Banker accused of raping Irish student goes on trial in New York

A former Goldman Sachs banker accused of raping an Irish student at a beach house on Long Island in New York goes on trial today.

Jason Lee (38) has been charged with raping the 20-year-old waitress, who is not being named, at a late-night summer party at his rented beach house in August 2013 after meeting her at a restaurant and nightclub in the Hamptons, the holiday destination popular with New Yorkers.

Mr Lee has waived his right to have the case heard by a jury and will be judged by New York State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Kahn in the criminal courts of Riverhead, a small town 80 miles east of Manhattan in Suffolk County, which includes the Hamptons and the east end of Long Island.

The Wall Street executive has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His defence lawyers maintain that his encounter with the Irish student was consensual. The Irish woman was living and working in the United States for the summer under the temporary J-1 visa programme.

Mr Lee is alleged to have raped the woman at a rented house in Wainscott early on the morning of August 20th, 2013 after a night of drinking and dancing at the Georgica restaurant and club, a Hamptons nightspot, while he was celebrating his 37th birthday.

The Irish student had been working in another state and was visiting her brother who was working in the Hamptons that summer.

Prosecutors have said that Mr Lee bought drinks for the woman and her friends at the club and later invited them back to his rented property. They claim that the Irish woman told investigators that Mr Lee, while naked, followed her into one of the house’s three bathrooms and pinned her down while she struggled to resist his advances.

Police were later called to the house and found Mr Lee hiding in a car. The Irish woman was taken to hospital where a nurse with experience handling sexual assault cases concluded that her injuries, including bruises, were consistent with the woman’s allegations.

Mr Lee's legal team say he is innocent. One of Mr Lee's lawyers, Edward Burke, has said that there was a "rush" to charge Mr Lee who had never been in trouble with police before and that there were no physical injuries on the woman after her encounter with him.

If convicted on the charge of first degree rape, the former Goldman Sachs managing director, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and an employee of the Wall Street investment bank since 1998, faces up to 25 years in prison.

It is unusual for defendants charged with criminal offences to chose to have cases heard before a judge in New York, though the decision by Mr Lee and his lawyers may have been influenced by the conservative local population from which jurors would have been picked.

The trial is scheduled to start at Suffolk County Criminal Court in Riverhead at 11am (4pm Irish time).