A “predatory” rapist who lured two friends back to his apartment where he drugged and raped them has been given a 12-year sentence.
Indian national Kapil Garg (35) had promised the young women “Ecstasy” but instead gave them antidepressant tablets with a sedative effect before raping them. Gardaí found a stash of the tablets at his home after the women escaped and alerted them of the attack.
Garg has previous convictions in the US including a battery conviction for a 2004 incident in which he broke into a sleeping woman’s motel room and began touching her before he was chased from the room.
Garg, originally from Mumbai, had been renting a room in a house on Whitefriar Place, Dublin 8, at the time. He has been in custody since the women reported the incident in July 2011.
He pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to raping and sexually assaulting the first woman and also denied charges of raping the second woman at his home on July 2nd, 2011. He was convicted by the jury following a seven-day trial last October.
‘Offensive behaviour’
Mr Justice Barry White told Garg it was a pity for all concerned he had waited until the eve of sentencing to accept responsibility for his “offensive behaviour”. He said if Garg had admitted his guilt earlier his victims would have been spared giving evidence and hearing his “untruthful testimony” during the trial.
Mr Justice White told Garg he had taken advantage of two young women whom he had enticed back to his apartment with the promise of “E” but had instead given them a drug with a soporific effect that left them unable to resist him raping them.
He said he could not ignore Garg’s previous conviction for battery in the US and said the facts tended to show if he had not been interrupted on that occasion an offence of a sexual nature would have been committed.
Mr Justice White imposed concurrent sentences totalling 12 years and suspended the final three years. He noted time in custody here would be more difficult for Garg as a foreign national. Garg has been registered as a sex offender.
Offer of €20,000
He noted the offer by Garg’s family of €20,000 and the women’s attitude to it. The women had indicated on Monday they were “repulsed” by the offer.
He said he had no doubt that represented a large sum for Garg’s family to gather and placed a great strain on his elderly parents. He ordered the money be returned to Garg’s family.
The two women gave victim impact evidence that the offences had changed their lives forever, impacted on relationships and left them struggling to concentrate in college and on exams.
Mary Rose Gearty SC, defending, told both women that Garg accepts responsibility for what he did and she was instructed to apologise to them.
The first woman said she was glad she reported the incident but will never stop regretting the decision they made that night to go back to a stranger’s house, which she said was completely out of character for them.
“My life has changed forever because of him and he has no remorse,” the first woman said. “I fear even with this conviction he has not learned his lesson.”
The second woman said waiting on results of STD tests had been particularly hard.