Eight years jail for pizza restaurant rapist
A pizza chef from Sydney’s south will spend a minimum of eight years in jail for his involvement in a gang rape of a teenage girl after she was drugged in the back of his restaurant in October 2016.
Ricardo Audish was found guilty of raping the 18-year-old at the back of the Lugarno restaurant, before allegedly passing her on to two teenage males who cannot be identified for legal reasons.
On Friday, Audish was sentenced to 13 years in jail, with a non-parole period of eight years.
NSW District Court judge David Arnott SC described the assault as one of “rank opportunism” which “involved a marked level of degradation of the victim”.
Judge Arnott said the young woman was “effectively passed from hand to hand for sexual gratification”, adding that such an assault “must be treated with real seriousness”.
The judge also said that the woman now suffers from serious psychological harm including clinical depression, PTSD and panic attacks, leading to a suicide attempt six months after the attack which left her hospitalised for a month.
The judge imposed the sentence to protect the community and provide a “powerful denunciation” of Audish’s behaviour.
Audish will be eligible for parole on 24 December 2028.
Irit Jackson, 30th August 2021
