Witnesses say Fort Worth MMA fighter raped two women feet from where a family slept
Testimony began Tuesday in the sexual assault trial of a professional MMA fighter who worked as a nightclub security officer.
Abdul Razak Alhassan is accused of raping two women inside one of their homes in Saginaw. Alhassan allegedly brought the two intoxicated women home from the Varsity Tavern, at 1005 Norwood St. in Fort Worth, where was working as a bouncer on March 23, 2018.
Alhassan, 34, who is from Ghana, has competed professionally since 2013 and has a black belt in judo, according to the Ultimate Fighting Championship website.
The younger of the two women Alhassan is accused of assaulting testified that she did not know the man was in her bedroom until he pinned her down on the bed and pulled up her dress.
The younger woman, who was 20 at the time, said she never actually saw him during the act, and told the jury that she was too traumatized to call out for help. Her parents slept in their beds, just down the hallway.
The Star-Telegram does not typically reveal the identities of sexual assault victims.
“When he put my face in the bed, the room was completely dark,” the younger woman said. “That’s when I found out there was a guy in my room. He pulled my dress up and sexually assaulted me. All I could see is my bed.”
Once Alhassan allegedly finished the sexual assault of the younger woman, he moved onto another bed where her friend was sleeping, according to the younger woman’s testimony. She could hear her friend, who was also intoxicated, mumbling.
“It was dark so I could not see him completely, but I could see someone was there,” the younger woman said. She was crying during her testimony, and she told the jury that she did not know how to say what the accused did next.
“I didn’t know what to do,” the younger woman said. “I was scared. I froze. It felt like I should have erupted. Instead, I didn’t. I froze.”
At the Varsity Tavern, the women had too much to drink, according to testimony
A Tarrant County grand jury indicted Alhassan on two counts of sexual assault on Sept. 24, 2018.
Alhassan was acquainted with one of the women but did not know the other, according to Allyson Kucera, Tarrant County prosecutor.
The older of the two women, who was 22 at the time, testified that she asked Alhassan for a favor. Her younger friend was 20, and the bar they were trying to enter was restricted to customers who were under 21 after 9 p.m., according to witness testimony.
The older woman testified that she went inside to see if there was a way to get her younger friend inside the bar. She said she told Alhassan that her friend was not quite 21 and asked if he could please let her inside, Kucera said in her opening statements.
Alhassan said he would let the younger woman inside if she came to the side gate, the alleged victim said. Then Alhassan turned to the woman who had asked him for a favor, and told her that he had let her friend inside, the woman said.
“What are you going to do for me?” Kucera said Alhassan asked the woman.
The older woman said she gave Alhassan her phone number, thinking that later she would block him and that it would be easy.
But later that night, after the older woman had some champagne and after she had been dancing, she and Alhassan ended up kissing outside a bar storage room, according to testimony. Both women were later inside the bar storage room with Alhassan.
One of the nightclub workers, Pedro Rocha, testified that he saw Alhassan and the two women come out of the storage room as he opened the door. Only bar employees were allowed inside the room, Rocha said.
“The girls were giggling and laughing all night,” Rocha said. “It comes with the drinking. I could tell they had been drinking, but they didn’t look intoxicated.”
Later, after they drank and danced some more, witnesses described the two women as intoxicated.
Both women ended up outside the bar on some stairs, with the younger woman sitting down and the other passed out on her lap, Joshua Yates testified. Attorneys deposed Yates, a Fort Worth police officer who worked security at the Varsity Tavern.
Yates testified the younger woman was trying to get the older woman to wake up. Alhassan asked the off-duty police officer to help him get the two women into a vehicle, but the officer declined to help.
The women were at the club to help Yates celebrate his birthday, according to testimony. Yates said that he is deployed in Saudi Arabia and was testifying via his video deposition.
“I was too drunk to help,” Yates said about that night at the bar.
Alhassan took the two women to the younger woman’s house in Saginaw after he loaded them into a vehicle he was driving, according to testimony.
When they got to the house
The younger woman said she had to awaken her mother when she got home because her keys were in her friend’s car. The younger woman told her mother that the bouncer had brought them home and later testified that she had no idea who put her older friend in bed.
The younger woman’s mother said that she was happy that her daughter had made it home safely and returned to her own bed. Although, the mother expressed some disappointment during her testimony that her daughter, who was underage, had been out that night drinking
The younger woman’s mother told the jury that she was soon awakened by her daughter, who was agitated and who was saying that something was wrong with her friend. The mother, who is a nurse, testified that she went into the bedroom and tried to awaken the older woman, but that she remained unresponsive and refused to awaken.
The older woman was in bed, and she had both her legs inside one leg hole of her underwear, and she was wearing them inside-out, the mother testified. A used condom was found on the older woman’s purse, the mother said.
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The mother said she finally was able to awaken her daughter’s friend and she took both young women to John Peter Smith Hospital, where the older woman received a sexual assault exam.
The mother said she placed the older woman’s underwear and the condom inside a plastic bag and handed it over to police. The mother testified that her daughter seemed scared.
“I felt scared myself,” the mother testified. “I guess I felt like I should have known that night.”
Alhassan was a contender
When Alhassan fought Niko Price in September 2018, he was 10-1 overall and 4-1 in the UFC with four first-round knockouts.
During a hearing to have Alhassan’s electronic monitoring device removed, his UFC head coach, Sayif Saud, testified that he considered the athlete one of the top 10 welterweight fighters in the world.
“He’s not a prospect; he’s a proven commodity,” Saud testified.
In ruling to eliminate the GPS requirement, the judge pointed out that Alhassan had no previous criminal record and that there had been no evidence that he had tried to contact either of the alleged victims.
“I don’t see any reason for me to stop him from making his living,” Judge Timmie White said.
But White warned Alhassan, “If he so much as sneezes during the wrong time,” or tries to contact his alleged victims, “you go back to jail.”
During his opening arguments in the trial, Alhassan’s attorney, Brandon Barnett, said after his client got the two women home, he had consensual sex with the younger woman and did not touch her older friend.
Barnett described Alhassan as a local celebrity, whose celebrity helped bring business to the nightclub. Club managers would play his fights on televisions at the club, Barnett said.
“He was popular with the men, and he was popular with the ladies,” Barnett said. “You’ll hear witnesses say that he did well with the ladies.”
Testimony is expected to continue on Wednesday
This story includes information from Star-Telegram archives.
This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 6:44 PM.
