Prato, 24-year-old drugged and raped: 59-year-old arrested

Florence, Dec. 19 (LaPresse) – A 24-year-old woman was allegedly raped after being given a sedative substance known as a “date rape drug.” The incident occurred on Monday, December 15, in Prato. The Public Prosecutor’s Office in Prato has ordered the detention of the alleged perpetrator, a 59-year-old Italian. According to the investigation, the victim, an employee of a local company, was invited by the 59-year-old to stay beyond working hours. The man allegedly offered her take-away soup, in which a drug had been dissolved. The young woman, the Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement, lost consciousness and woke up hours later inside a camper, wearing different clothes from those she had worn during the workday. Convinced she had been abused, the woman went to the local hospital for medical examinations, which did not reveal injuries consistent with assault, while toxicology tests detected the presence of benzodiazepines in her system. Surveillance footage from the premises, the Prosecutor’s Office notes, “documented the illicit conduct,” and “investigations, conducted with the support of the Operational Mobile Unit and the Carabinieri Company of Prato, allowed the reconstruction of the events and the identification of the alleged perpetrator, a man already known to law enforcement authorities.”