A street cleaner who used his resemblance to Keanu Reeves to lure women on dates has been jailed for drugging, raping, and filming the abuse of his three victims.
Ubaldo Manuali, 59, from Rome, Italy, was sentenced to nine years and 10 months in prison after being accused of aggravated sexual violence and illicit dissemination of sexually explicit images.
Throughout the investigations, it was found that Manuali had managed to convince three women he met on social media to meet him in person before carrying out the horrific acts of abuse.
During the harrowing trial, they revealed that they had all met the cleaner online via one of his six different social media accounts, where he boasted his resemblance to Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves.
After seducing them and establishing a level of trust, he would strike.
Ubaldo Manuali, 59, from Rome, would lure women on dates with his alleged resemblance to Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves
The street cleaner was sentenced to nine years and 10 months in prison after being accused of aggravated sexual violence and illicit dissemination of sexually explicit images of three women
The women would be invited to meet Manuali, before they were drugged with sleeping pills without their knowledge.
Once unconscious, the victims were raped and the abuse was filmed before Manuali distributed the images among his friends.
Investigators had seized all of Manuali’s mobile phones and laptops and found he had kept not only all of the messages with the women, but also the images and footages captured on the nights.
Prosecutor Michele Adragna said: ‘This type of violence is more serious than physical violence, it is more subtle because it takes advantage of the psychophysical disability of women.
‘It is as if it were a double violence. And Manuali is blinded by the sexual result, by his satisfaction’.
The investigations by the Viterbo Flying Squad and the Flaminio Nuovo police station began after a report was submitted by the latest victim, Stefania Liozzi from Capranica, in January.
She had to make a visit to the emergency room after the night with Manuali when she woke in a confused and dazed state.
Manuali would boast about how he looked similar to Reeves, 59, pictured
Photos and videos of the abuse were found in Manuali’s phone while she appeared semi-conscious and from there they then traced the other two victims.
‘Every time we went out together he bragged to me that he had had a thousand women. He was obsessed with his beauty, with showing off,’ Lozzi told local media.
‘But then he took pictures of me all the time and repeated, “Look, I’m a serious man, they’re the ones looking for me,'” she added.
The three victims, from Capranica, Alatri, and Mazzano Romano, will be compensated around £22,000 following their ordeal.
In the arrest warrant that led to the immediate trial, the investigating judge spoke of ‘marked criminal capacity’, driven by a ‘maniacal perversion to satisfy his sexual impulses, stunning the victims to avoid a possible refusal’.
They said the 59-year-old had ‘a total inability to self-control’, and was ‘able to make his victims believe that he even helped them when they weren’t feeling well’.
When the verdict was announced, Manuali seemed unfazed at the outcome and claimed he will be appealing, insisting ‘I know I didn’t do anything’.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
