An entertainment professional who dragged a complete stranger into a car and raped her in a western Sydney park has finally faced justice 25 years later.
Riziq Khoury was married with children and was praised for his entertainment services for private and corporate events and extravagant annual Christmas lights at his home in Llandilo.
Now the disgraced business owner is behind bars for a shocking, despicable sexual assault in broad daylight on a total stranger he ‘grabbed’ from a street in Western Sydney in 1998.
Jurors found Khouri guilty of non-consensual sex during his trial last October in relation to the historic incident.
He was found not guilty of aggravated non-consensual sexual intercourse after jurors were asked to consider whether the physical impairment of the female victim aggravated his crime.
Judge Robin Tupman described the horrific incident when sentencing Khoury in Sydney District Court last week.
The Downing Center Court Complex. Photo: NCA NewsWire / Nicky Short
The woman – who had just moved to Sydney from overseas – was walking home from work in a Lidcombe pub on an afternoon in November 1998.
“The offender got out (of a car) and, according to the victim, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into the car,” Judge Tupman said.
“She was shocked, scared and frightened and by the end of the crime she was frozen – she had never seen him or the driver, who she described as a woman.”
The victim was driven to a park in Lidcombe or Auburn, where Khoury dragged her into a bush, kissed her, then pulled her to the ground and used his body weight to pin her down.
The woman was unable to stand up or push Khouri away due to the specific nature of her physical disability.
Judge Tupman said Khouri then raped the woman without using a condom and ejaculated inside her.
The woman was walking past Lidcombe train station when she was attacked.
The woman went directly to Auburn Hospital, where a sexual assault test kit, including DNA swabs, was performed.
More than 20 years later, when Khoury participated in the oral cavity examination for unrelated reasons, his DNA matched swabs from a sexual assault test kit from the 1998 rape.
The 45-year-old father of five was subsequently charged.
“There was no evidence of anything that could be described as planning, it was brazen and spontaneous,” Judge Tupman said.
“He knew for a fact that she did not consent and I would consider the emotional harm to the victim to be significant.”
Judge Tupman described the victim as “calm” and “dignified” in his evidence during the trial.
“She said, ‘I had to find my own path to forgiveness so I could have peace,'” Judge Tupman said.
“Her victim impact statement exemplifies the kind of woman I’ve observed — a woman of grace and dignity.”
Police charged Khoury more than two decades after the attack following a DNA match. Photo: Monique Harmer
Khouri has always denied committing the crime, but Judge Tupman said he had expressed something approaching remorse in an interview with a psychologist after his conviction.
“He acknowledged the trauma of the victim and said ‘I can’t believe I put her through this, her family and my family, oh my God, I’m ashamed,'” Judge Tupman said.
“(He said) ‘I feel terribly sorry for her and her family’ – although that is not an admission, I accept that those responses demonstrate some understanding of the impact of what happened on the victim.”
Khoury had no criminal record when he committed the rape, but was on bond without conviction in subsequent years for dangerous driving and simple assault.
Judge Tupman said Khouri was also given a community corrections order for animal cruelty charges relating to the neglect of an alpaca, sheep and goat he previously owned.
Khouri was found guilty and sentenced to six years in prison for the sexual assault, with a three-year non-parole period.
His wife wiped away tears as she sat among scores of family members who attended to support him.
Khouri is the founder of Cdarz Entertainment, which provides music and entertainment for events, including weddings.
On his website, Khouri claims to have facilitated the entertainment at the 2010 wedding of radio personality Kyle Sandilands to his ex-wife Tamara Jaber.
