(KRON) — A North Carolina eye care doctor who raped a woman he met on Tinder while on a Bay Area work trip in 2023 was sentenced to prison on Tuesday, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office.
Nizar Fathallah Saleh Abdelfattah, 37, of Durham, N.C., was sentenced to six years in state prison and lifetime registration as a sex offender. He was ordered to have no contact with the victim for 10 years and pay $8,000 in restitution.
In March, a San Mateo County jury found Abdelfattah guilty of forcible rape and forcible digital penetration. The victim, her partner and her father all gave impact statements to the court during sentencing Tuesday.
Abdelfattah was staying at the SFO Marriott Waterfront hotel in Burlingame on Sept. 30, 2023, during a business trip when he used the dating app Tinder to meet the victim. The two met up for a drink, where the woman told Abdelfattah that she was “not interested in hooking up with him,” the DA’s office said.
After a long walk back to his hotel room, Abdelfattah forced himself onto the woman. The victim reported the rape immediately to the Burlingame Police Department.
On Tuesday, defense attorney Cherie Wallace argued for a new trial based on claims that Judge Jackson “improperly favored the prosecution” and that the prosecutor was “improperly harsh towards her during the trial,” according to the DA’s office. The court denied the defense’s motion on all grounds.
