Natchez man arrested for rape in New Orleans

Published 12:00 am Friday, October 21, 2016

NEW ORLEANS — A Natchez man who turned himself into police Tuesday allegedly repeatedly raped a woman he met on the dating app Tinder in September.

The New Orleans Advocate reports that William A. McDonough Jr., 43, was booked on second-degree rape for a Sept. 15 incident, which reportedly happened in an apartment at the Cotton Mill building in the Warehouse District of New Orleans.

McDonough is a financial planner in Natchez.

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The Advocate reports “the woman told police she went to a concert and a bar after meeting McDonough on Tinder. At some point during the evening, they split an MDMA pill and drank alcohol, but she was not intoxicated, she said. When he invited her back to his apartment, she said, she declined because she did not want to have sex with him but finally agreed to go there to watch the HBO series ‘The Night Of.’

At the apartment, the woman alleged, McDonough began kissing and touching her on his bed, then threw her clothes off his balcony. He began forcing himself on her and continued after she tried to stop him, she said. Then he began having sex with her and continued even though she told him not to, the woman said.

The woman said she was eventually able to persuade McDonough to give her a nightgown and let her wrap herself in a blanket, but he then began assaulting her again.

When the woman tried to stop him again, according to a warrant, he ignored her and continued. The woman said she was able to escape only when McDonough went to find Ambien in an attempt to calm her down, because he “knew she was upset,” the warrant says.

The woman told detectives that she immediately told her sister and friends, then went to a hospital to have a sexual assault examination.

NOPD Detective Claudia Bruce wrote in the Oct. 7 warrant that McDonough later apologized for the incident by saying it was out of character for him. The woman was able to identify McDonough from a photo, Bruce said.

McDonough turned himself in at the jail on Tuesday morning, according to court records. A magistrate commissioner set his bail at $30,000, over the objection of Assistant District Attorney Daniel Smart, and he has since been released.”