A Jordanian woman who moved to New York as a teen was repeatedly raped by her brother and treated as his “sexual slave” for decades, a sickening new lawsuit claims.
Eman Soudani, 63, says her former restaurateur brother, Mout’z Soudani, 72, horrifically abused her while isolating her, denying her educational opportunities and subjecting her to “economic servitude,” according to the recently filed Manhattan federal court suit.
Mout’z “forcibly took Plaintiff’s virginity in 1977, when she was 17, just months after she first arrived in the United States from Jordan” — and she got an abortion after he impregnated her in 1989, the lawsuit alleges.
“He continued to treat her as a sexual slave for decades, until October 2022, when Plaintiff finally escaped Soudani’s domination,” court documents claim.
But the defendant says his sibling accuser is nothing but a liar.
The defendant’s lawyer pointed The Post to news of the recent guilty plea by the plaintiff’s son arising from a felony charge of embezzling more than $1.6 million from the defendant in a crypto currency scheme.
“Eman Soudani’s civil complaint is absolutely false and complete fiction,” insisted Mout’z’s lawyer, Michael Burke. “He emphatically denies each and every allegation.”
Eman’s shocking civil complaint was filed last month, under the expiring Adult Survivors Act, by lawyer Arthur Middlemiss.
She claims in her suit that her brother treated her as an indentured servant and controlled all aspects of her life for 45 years while sexually abusing her.
The pair lived together at various times including in Rockland County and upstate Montgomery, the lawsuit says.
At the age of 17, she became the primary caregiver to her brother’s three sons — and that’s when her sibling forced her to have sex with him against her will, the complaint said.
Mout’z’s first wife, Helen, was brutally murdered in September 1977 and found dead outside the couple’s now-closed Aegean Grotto restaurant, according to the suit and the Journal News.
The murder was never solved, the suit said.
Her brother eventually arranged for her marriage with an Egyptian man, Mohammed Elkarim, the suit said. They had a son and later divorced, and she moved back to her brother’s house, court papers allege.
“Soudani carried out his sexual attacks against the plaintiff using forcible compulsion,
undue influence, overt threats, duress, coercion, physical force, and intimidation,” the suit says.
Mout’z also “threatened and inflicted physical violence” against Eman and her son, Martin, the complaint said.
Eman also said her brother threatened to kill her son on “multiple occasions” and more than once pointed a gun at them.
She said she felt trapped because she and Martin feared for their lives, according to the suit.
Her brother later married Elizabeth Rutkay, a woman about 10 years his senior and who had worked at his restaurant. She had a worsening heart condition and eventually died, the suit says.
In the complaint, the plaintiff said she escaped her brother’s clutches by fleeing to Colorado last year.
After she fled to Colorado, Soudani accused her of stealing more than $300,000 in cash from him, and she was charged with grand larceny in March of this year, the suit said.
But the Orange County District Attorney’s Office reduced the felony count to a misdemeanor, and the case was later dismissed by the Town of Goshen criminal court, the complaint said.
Mout’z’s lawyer, Burke, said both Eman and her son Martin fled to Colorado once Mout’z became “suspicious of the son’s fraud.
Martin Soudani, 34, was arraigned in Orange County Court on an indictment charging him with grand larceny and money laundering earlier this year for allegedly embezzling $1.62 million from Mout’z over a five-year period.
Court records show that Martin is set to be sentenced in the case early next year.
Eman’s suit seeks at least $75,000 from her brother in compensatory and punitive damages for sex abuse and unjustment enrichment and related counts.
“I’m thankful for the support of everyone who helped me escape a lifetime of unspeakable abuse. Having taken these steps I encourage those who have had similar experiences to be brave and come forward,” Eman Soudani told The Post.
