College student charged with raping his wife
A 24-year-old West Chester University student has been arrested and charged with repeatedly raping his 22-year-old wife and trying to force her to return to her home in the Balkan nation of Macedonia.
Lirim Rufati of the 500 block of West Rosedale Avenue was arrested Friday by West Goshen Township police and charged with kidnapping to inflict injury or terror, false imprisonment, rape, deviate sexual intercourse, and aggravated assault.
An affidavit of probable cause states that after almost a year of beating and raping his wife when she refused intercourse, Rufati drove her to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City on Jan. 3, gave her a plane ticket to Macedonia, and saw her through the check-in line.
Once out of sight, the wife, who was not named, contacted a police officer with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who arranged for a Chester County neighbor of the wife's to drive her home.
The affidavit states that Rufati, who was born in New Jersey, went to Macedonia in 2011 for an arranged marriage in which he "was introduced by his uncle to her father and the two married."
"Shortly after being married," the affidavit states, "he began to physically assault her and threaten her when she would make him angry. She could not leave him."
In West Goshen, she lived in apartment with Rufati, his 5-year-old brother, and their father.
The affidavit states that she did not contact police about the assaults because, among other reasons, she said that "she would bring great shame on her family if she left."
Once settled in a West Goshen apartment, the wife made friends with a neighbor to whom, through limited English, she told of repeated assaults by Rufati.
On Jan. 2, the neighbor heard "sounds of an altercation" and called West Goshen police, who took the wife to a hotel.
On Jan. 3, the neighbor called West Goshen police and reported that the wife "was kidnapped by Rufati and taken against her will to JFK airport" for the flight to Macedonia "as a punishment for speaking with the police."
Bail was set at $250,000 and Rufati was sent to Chester County Prison.
Contact Walter F. Naedele at 610-313-8134 or wnaedele@phillynews.com.
