Newport man pleads guilty to sex charge in rape-case deal
A Newport Beach man accused of raping or attempting to rape seven women he met while partying on the Balboa Peninsula pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a felony sex charge as part of a plea deal with prosecutors.
In July, Orange County Superior Court jurors cleared Adel Regragui, 43, of a dozen felonies related to sexual assault but could not come to a decision on counts related to two women, which included rape charges.
Six of the women said they were sexually assaulted and one said he tried to assault her but she managed to leave his house and get in a cab, court records show.
Rather than retry the case, which would force victims to retestify on the remaining counts, with unfavorable odds of success, prosecutors decided to reach a deal that had Regragui plead guilty to one felony charge for raping an incompetent person, according to Deputy District Attorney Michael Carroll.
“It’s not the punishment we had hoped for and that we think he deserves,” Carroll said. “But we reached a conclusion so the victims can hopefully move on.”
The felony charge carries a maximum of eight years in prison. However, since Regragui has been behind bars since 2011 and has more than seven years of credit for time served, he will not serve any additional time, Carroll said. He is expected to be released when he returns to court for sentencing Nov. 13.
Regragui, a Moroccan citizen in the United States as a permanent resident, plans to return to Morocco after his release. If he returns to the United States, he will be forced to register as a sex offender, Carroll said.
Regragui was facing 19 felonies including rape, forcible sodomy, forced oral copulation and sexual penetration by a foreign object for allegedly drugging or overpowering women between March 2005 and November 2011.
In court documents, prosecutors alleged that Regragui preyed on women he met at a Balboa Peninsula dive bar that was near his home, often offering them cocaine and alcohol and sometimes drugging them with GHB, known as the date rape drug.
Prosecutors allege that he would then force them to perform sex acts and “role play” wearing lingerie that he provided, sometimes binding their hands and legs with what the women thought were shoelaces.
Regragui’s defense argued in court documents that the sex was consensual.
“Rather, the alleged victims were sophisticated and experienced party-goers and drug-users in the Newport Beach bar scene who voluntarily ingested drugs and knew full well they were engaging in and knowingly consenting to sexual relations with the defendant,” his attorney wrote.