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Endless party ended in rape, girl testifies

It was like a party every day of the week, from October until the middle of April, a weeping 17-year-old girl testified in Philadelphia Family Court yesterday.

It was like a party every day of the week, from October until the middle of April, a weeping 17-year-old girl testified in Philadelphia Family Court yesterday.

Tawfik Nakishbendi, 60, supplied her and her underage friends with alcohol, the anti-anxiety drug Xanax and the pain reliever Percocet during regular get-togethers at his Manayunk home, on Lemonte Street near Mansion, she said.

When Assistant District Attorney Erin O'Brien asked the girl to quantify the number of pills Nakishbendi had provided, she replied: "How ever many we wanted."

But things changed on or about April 12, when Nakishbendi beckoned her to his bedroom, said the girl, who was 16 at the time.

"He was lying on the bed and he asked me to lay down next to him . . . He started to touch me. I was crying and I told him to stop," the girl sobbed, as she described being raped.

Nakishbendi, a balding man clad in a gray pin-striped suit, stood next to defense attorney Daniel P. McElhatton and said nothing during the preliminary hearing.

Judge Sheldon C. Jelin held him for trial on a rape count and a battery of related charges, including unlawful contact with a minor, unlawful restraint, recklessly endangering another person, possession of an instrument of crime and criminal use of a communication device - his computer.The latter charge is a result of the allegation that Nakishbendi - on a day before the alleged rape - pulled down the girl's sweatpants and underwear and took photographs of her while she slept.

The girl testified that she discovered the photos while looking at his computer.

Contrary to earlier media reports, Nakishbendi is not a doctor but is retired from the medical field, McElhatton said after the hearing. Nakishbendi will turn 61 years old on Monday.

A widower since his wife's suicide four years ago, Nakishbendi has been free on bail for six weeks.

At the prosecutor's urging, Jelin ordered the defendant not to have unsupervised contact with anyone under the age of 18 and not to leave the country.

"Certainly, he's presumed innocent," McElhatton said. "We will vigorously defend him."