Woman accuses Rutgers professor of rape — says semen stain is proof

NEWARK — A woman says she was repeatedly raped by a Rutgers Business School professor on camys and claims the university did little to investigate the allegations, protect her from the accused predator and shield her from retaliation by his supporters.

The accusations by the student against Nabil Adam — a high-profile academic who was suspended from the university last November — made headlines earlier this year. Last month, the student filed a discrimination lawsuit in federal district court of New Jersey under the pseudonym “Jane Doe.” The lawsuit now accuses another professor of viciously attacking her reputation.

The student, a Kearny resident who is in the United States on a student visa from India, says she attempted suicide three times as a result of Adam coercing her into a sexual relationship. Her lawsuit describes numerous instances in which Adam raped the student by forcibly tearing off her clothes on campus.

Adam was not charged with a crime.

During one incident claimed in the lawsuit, Adam’s semen stained the woman’s trousers, which she kept and later provided to the Rutgers University Police Department as evidence. A laboratory confirmed the stain as being human semen but Adam refused to provide investigators with a cheek swab for a DNA test, calling it an invasion of privacy, the lawsuit says.

An internal university investigation into the student’s accusations later chided Adam for declining to provide a DNA sample, saying that an innocent man would want to clear his name, the lawsuit says.

The university Office of Employment Equity’s investigation, which concluded in April, found that Adam hindered the investigation, “misrepresented and withheld information” and faulted him for not alerting university officials after the student threatened or attempted suicide or after she emailed him and accused him of rape.

The report, however, could not conclusively determine that the student had been sexually assaulted or whether Adam and the student had a sexual relationship.

In May, the university removed Adam from his position as vice chancellor for research and collaborations. He remains on leave “while the university considers the appropriate subsequent phase of ‘corrective and/or disciplinary action’ in accordance with university policy,” a university spokesman said this week, declining to comment on the lawsuit.

An attorney for Adam did not return an emailed request for comment on Thursday.

The university’s April report was actually the second investigation into the allegations by the student. A year earlier, the Office of Employment Equity concluded that it could not determine that the sexual misconduct policy had been violated because both denied having a sexual relationship.

But the lawsuit says the student had been terrified that the professor would ruin her academic and professional career, which is why she did not cooperate with the first investigation. The university had launched the initial investigation after she told another professor about what Adam had been doing. That professor then alerted university officials.

The lawsuit says the sexual assault began in January 2016 at Adam's Newark office, when he started to kiss her and slid his hands between her legs and into her pants. As he attempted to take off her clothes, her lawsuit says he asked her to follow him to a more private space in another building on the Newark campus. She “began to make up excuses as to why she could not follow him. Over her constant objections, Dr. Adam became authoritative and forced her to walk with him” to the research center in another building, the lawsuit says.

One they got to the other building, he “forcefully undressed her. He then exposed himself and began rubbing his penis against her genitalia. Dr. Adam then grabbed plaintiff’s head and forced his penis into her mouth. The encounter culminated with Dr. Adam masturbating to completion in front of plaintiff, resulting in some of his ejaculate staining plaintiff’s shoes,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit says she called her husband in India and cried, telling him that she was afraid of reporting him.

After that incident, the student says Adam emailed her to say that it would be OK if she wanted to switch advisors. But she says she did not because she was fearful that he would derail her career.

Later that month, she says, he once again attempted to rape her on campus but she fled, which she says made him “furious.”

The lawsuit says Adam repeatedly called her. When she finally picked up, he asked her to meet in person to discuss what had happened. She agreed to meet him in her home on Jan. 21, 2016. Instead of talking about what had happened, the lawsuit says he “forcefully undressed her, forced her into her bedroom and raped her.” She says he then took a shower in the apartment and left “like nothing had happened.”

In the following weeks, he continued grabbing her and kissing her while on the job and often pressured her for sex, she says. The sex happened while they were away on conferences or at Adam’s home when his wife was asleep or away, the lawsuit says.

“Worn down by Dr. Adam’s persistent demands and in continued fear of retribution,” she “began to succumb to Dr. Adam’s sexual advances,” the lawsuit says.

She began to think about suicide and spoke to him about it, although he never reported her suicidal emails to authorities, the lawsuit says. The lawsuit says she attempted suicide three times, the first two times in Adam’s presence. The third time, she took sleeping pills, passed out on street and was hospitalized.

In June 2017, she emailed him and accused him of being a “shameless, guiltless rapist" — another email that the lawsuit says he should have reported to the university.

During the university’s first investigation, the lawsuit says he continued to assault her. In one case, she says he unzipped his pants, grabbed her hand and forced her to touch his penis. She says she got up and left.

In late October or early November 2017, more than a month after the university concluded its first investigation, the lawsuit says she went to the office to get something from her desk. Adam grabbed her, pulled down her pants, rubbed his penis against her genitalia and raped her, the lawsuit says. That was the alleged incident during which his semen stained her pants.

On Nov. 21, 2017, she asked that the investigation be reopened and filed a formal complaint for the first time.

The lawsuit accuses the university of violating federal Title IX and the state Law Against Discrimination over sexual harassment, hostile educational environment and retaliation.

The lawsuit says Rutgers Business School professor Periklis Papakonstantinou disparaged the student after she made her accusations, and says the university did nothing to stop it.

When reached by New Jersey 101.5 on Friday, Papakonstantinou declined to comment on the allegations.

The student says the university has prevented her from finishing her doctoral degree program by limiting her access to research data, “resulting in further damage to her academic reputation and future job prospects.”