NEW ORLEANS (New Orleans Advocate) -- A former bartender at Sazerac Bar located in the Roosevelt Hotel has been accused of drugging and raping a woman whom he met at the bar earlier this year, according to a report from New Orleans Advocate.
Matthew Steinvorth, 33, was booked May 28 on a count of second-degree rape from an incident that happened in April of this year, according to the victim who came forward with the allegations.
In a warrant signed by New Orleans Police Department Sex Crimes Unit Detective Anya Coleman, the victim told police she met Steinvorth at the Sazerac Bar on the night of April 18 after attending a concert and met a man with “bright blue eyes” and curly hair.
As her friends left the bar, the woman said, she told them she would take an Uber home and continued talking with the man.
The woman said that when her new companion offered to buy her a drink, she ordered a Sazerac. As the bartender put together the legendary drink, according to the warrant, the man commented on how “awesome and wonderful of a mixologist” the bartender was.
The woman told investigators the last thing she remembered was complimenting the bartender as well.
She said she “then was awakened by the male who purchased her drink straddling her” and repeatedly penetrating her.
The woman said she was shocked and attempted to pull away, but the man grabbed her neck and continued until he ejaculated onto her stomach and lower pelvic area. The woman said she felt “numb” and “as if she was having an out-of-body experience.”
Dehydrated and thirsty, the woman said, she realized she was inside someone’s home as she passed family photos and kids’ toys on her way to a kitchen for a glass of water. She said she also spotted a “broken plate with a white powdery substance on it.”
The woman said she collected her clothes and made the “silent” man drop her off at her home about 4:15 a.m. April 19 but not before he briefly grabbed her iPhone, according to the warrant.
The woman told police that she later concluded the man took the phone to delete his contact number but that he failed to delete her call logs.
The woman said she felt “wired” after the encounter and “believed something was slipped into her drink by the suspect.”
That afternoon, police said, the woman went to the University Medical Center for a sexual assault examination, although the warrant does not state whether any DNA from the man was collected or analyzed.
The woman did not file a police report, according to the warrant, until going to the offices of the nonprofit Sexual Trauma Awareness and Response group two days later.
Police said they identified Steinvorth as a suspect in the case from a phone number left on the woman’s phone.
In February, Steinvorth was quoted on a New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau website as calling himself “the face of the Sazerac Bar.” In March, a photograph of him accompanied a New York Times article about the well-known watering hole.
Read the full report from New Orleans Advocate: http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/15995772-173/former-bartender-at-sazerac-bar-accused-of-raping-woman-he-later-met-there
