A former Citigroup bigwig was sentenced to 30 years in jail Tuesday after admitting to drugging and raping a number of girls in his luxe Central Park South digs — and blaming his “autism” for the sinister intercourse crimes.
Harvard-educated Edward Gene Smith, 50, referred to as his “autism spectrum dysfunction” the “major driver” of a decade-long reign of terror — a declare Manhattan federal prosecutors referred to as “inflammatory nonsense” as they described the chilling notes he saved to doc his assaults.
Smith recorded one among his wicked assaults in April 2023, when he raped an incapacitated lady after drugging her with a laced drink, in response to his responsible plea in January.
He then shared the footage with different deviants on an encrypted platform.
The ex-Wall Road hotshot was arrested in 2024 after working at a number of banks and rising via the ranks at Citigroup to turn out to be a managing director.
He repeatedly drugged and raped a school scholar he satisfied to maneuver to New York Metropolis in 2019, in accordance his sick admission.
Smith individually saved a twisted trove in his Manhattan rental house of tens of 1000’s of photographs of kids being sexually abused, and paid one among his victims 1000’s of {dollars} to signal a phony “letter of help,” in response to Manhattan US Legal professional Jay Clayton.
The disgraced former financial institution bigwig saved in depth notes planning how he would torture and punish his victims, prosecutors mentioned.
“Edward Gene Smith is a sexual predator and a serial rapist,” Clayton mentioned in an announcement. “He spent years hiding behind wealth, schooling, and standing whereas he dedicated egregious sexual crimes.”
“He’s now the place he belongs, in jail,” Clayton added.
After pleading responsible, Smith introduced up his purported “autism spectrum dysfunction,” or ASD, in a bid to persuade Choose Paul Engelmayer handy him a extra lenient sentence.
“Mr. Smith’s ASD is the first driver of his offense conduct. It’s the cause that his interactions crossed the road from authorized, if unorthodox, to prison,” protection legal professionals Donna Newman and Clara Kalhaus wrote to the court docket earlier this month.
The Ivy League graduate was “devastated to be taught that his understanding of his relationships with the ladies he regarded as his girlfriends was improper, and that they skilled their encounters with him as non-consensual sexual abuse and even rape,” his attorneys added.
Prosecutors shot again that Smith had made “an offensive smear to these within the autism group” whereas shirking accountability for the stunning crimes, which unfolded from as early as 2015 to his 2024 bust.
“There will be no mistake. The defendant knew precisely what he was doing when he drugged and sexually abused his victims. He knew precisely what he was doing when he sought out, downloaded, collected, and arranged horrific photographs of the sexual abuse of kids. And he knew precisely what he was doing when he paid a lady he raped to attempt to cowl up his crimes,” the Manhattan US Legal professional’s Workplace wrote.
Smith has a spouse, Heather Rodgers, who he married in 2012, in response to his legal professionals. Rodgers lives in South Carolina in a house the feds are trying to grab with the intention to present restitution to his victims, court docket papers present.
Smith had reached out to the victims on on-line platforms the place he pursued “sugar courting” relationships, telling the ladies he would pay them to behave out his sexual “fantasies,” his legal professionals wrote.
“Even earlier than he married Heather, Edward had begun searching for sexual companions who would interact in sexual actions he had seen on the web, together with his ‘drunk woman’ fantasy, by which his companion would eat copious portions of alcohol earlier than intercourse,” his attorneys mentioned.
A rep for Citi mentioned Smith was fired as quickly because the financial institution realized that he was being investigated by regulation enforcement.
“We cooperated with regulation enforcement as they sought justice for the victims of those heinous crimes,” an organization spokesperson mentioned.
