US manhunt for Irishmen over gang rape
AMERICAN police are hunting for two Irishmen allegedly involved in the gang rape of a tourist in New Orleans, while a third Irishman is already in custody.
A fourth man, who is believed to be Irish, is also being sought.
New Orleans police said that up to eight men were involved in the alleged attack on the woman following a night out in the city. Yesterday they issued photographs of three men and said all three are being sought for the suspected sexual assault of the tourist last November.
They said the whereabouts of the trio is not known. Two of the men are Irish and one is from Dublin originally, a police source confirmed.
They have not yet officially confirmed the nationality of the third man.
A fourth man, Patrick Mooney, a 25-yearold advertising analyst from south Dublin, is in custody in New Orleans and is charged with aggravated rape. He previously worked as a bar manager in Stillorgan.
All four men are believed to have been working in technology in Austin’s growing silicone economy. The New Orleans Police Department said yesterday it is ‘searching for three subjects in connection with a sexual assault that occurred in New Orleans in November of 2017.’
Mr Mooney agreed to accompany officers as a prisoner from Travis County, Texas, to New Orleans to answer the charges and waived the right to challenge state-tostate extradition. He signed his extradition waiver in Travis County on February 21, court documents released to the Irish Daily Mail have shown.
Police said in a criminal complaint to a Louisiana court yesterday that Mr Mooney agreed that he had ‘sexual contact’ with the woman. They said in court documents the woman was highly intoxicated at the time and can’t remember all the details.
Mr Mooney has yet to respond to the charges of raping the woman on November 25 last.
New Orleans police officer, Claudia Bruce, wrote in a criminal complaint to the court that the victim was drinking with friends on Bourbon Street in the main tourist area of the city.
At 3am she met a man aged about 25 at a bar called Funky 544. He took her to his hotel room. She said they started ‘making out’ but then the man moved to sexual intercourse, but she doesn’t remember how this happened. She said six or seven males entered the room and each took turns having sex with her.
She could only recall ‘bits and pieces of the incident because she was highly intoxicated’ but stated that she did recall the males ‘hitting and slapping her’. She said she couldn’t find her shirt afterwards and one of the men gave her a T-shirt and they pushed her out of the room.
The alleged victim stated that, after sitting and crying, she called a friend. A couple saw she was distraught and helped her, Officer Bruce wrote. Police were later able to retrace the victim’s footsteps to a hotel from her mobile phone data.