A construction worker from Pennsylvania has admitted to brutally beating and attempting to molest a woman in a restroom at Midtown bar after she rejected his advances.
Mbarek Lafrem, of Norwood, Pa., pleaded guilty Monday to assault and attempted sexual abuse in the March 2010 attack at Social.
"He felt it was the right thing to do at this juncture," Lafrem's lawyer, Yana A. Roy, said after court.
A judge promised him a 16-year sentence after prosecutors asked for 20 years; he is set to be formally sentenced Sept. 1.
"The attack on this woman was quick and brutal," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement. "The victim was severely and savagely beaten by a stranger."
Lafrem had been working at a midtown construction site and was staying at a hotel near Social, a three-story bar and lounge on Eighth Avenue.
The woman, a 29-year-old pediatric nurse from Connecticut, told police that she had rebuffed attempts by the man to dance with her. When she went to the women's restroom on the second floor, he followed her and burst into a stall.
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Lafrem beat the victim until she was unconscious. A friend found her on the bathroom floor with her pants nearly pulled off.
The woman was hospitalized with a broken eye socket, broken jaw and other injuries.
