A former university student in Chicago who was charged and cleared in a sexual assault case involving the re-enactment of scenes from Fifty Shades of Grey is facing renewed charges relating to the incident.
Mohammad Hossain, 19, was back in court on Wednesday for allegedly sending photos of the March 2015 incident to friends on Facebook.
Hossain faces charges of unlawfully taking pictures of a 19-year-old woman, a Class 4 felony in Illinois. He faces up to three years in prison for each count.
Hossain was freed from the county jail in March after a judge found no probable cause to hold him on charges that he sexually assaulted the woman in his University of Illinois dorm room in February.
Prosecutors allege that hours after the incident on 21 February, Hossain posted on his Facebook page: “I’m finally satisfied … feeling accomplished.” Assistant state’s attorney Lorraine Scaduto said he then sent four photographs of the woman – who was bound, blindfolded and naked in some – to friends. Scaduto said the photographs were taken without the woman’s consent.
The photographs were discovered in March, Scaduto said, after a search warrant for Hossain’s Facebook page was returned to police at the University of Chicago – where the alleged victim was also a student. Hossain has since been suspended from the university, his lawyer told the court on Wednesday.
At a hearing in March, the woman testified that she had met up with Hossain after going to see the movie and receiving a text inviting her to his dorm. They had had sex prior to 21 February, she said, and though she agreed to be tied up on the night of the alleged assault, she did not consent to have sex. She said he beat and raped her as she cried and shook her head.
After the brief hearing on Wednesday, Hossain’s lawyer, Joshua Kutnick, told reporters the statute under which his client was charged did not apply to his case.
“The law is on our side,” Kutnick told reporters. “I anticipate a favorable resolution of this case very quickly.”
At the March hearing, judge Peggy Champas warned Hossain that prosecutors could still seek an indictment against him.
Hossain’s bail has been set at $10,000.
