Narratives Diverge in Trial of Mustapha Ouanes, Accused of Rape It began as the sort of encounter that happens often and without note in the bars of Manhattan: an older married man vying for the attention of younger women with Champagne and meals at marquee hotels. They shared drinks and an early morning cab ride to the Plaza Hotel, where they had breakfast in his room before falling asleep there. At that point, their versions of events diverged, with the women's narrative of an involuntary sexual encounter accepted by the police and prosecutors. The man, Mustapha Ouanes, a member of the traveling entourage of a Saudi prince, began trial on Monday on charges that he raped one of the women, who was then 26, after she passed out, incapacitated by alcohol and hashish, on the bed in his suite at the Plaza. Mr. Ouanes, 60, argues that whatever happened that morning two years ago was consensual and that the women, friends who work as a bartender and a waitress in Manhattan, invented the rape allegation after he declined to pay for sex. "Their story is driven by anger and greed at Mustapha Ouanes for something he did not do," his lawyer, Frederica L. Miller, told jurors in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. If the case is reminiscent of the dropped charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, for the allegation of a violent sexual encounter by a powerful hotel guest, the similarities do not go much further. Samuel David, the assistant district attorney prosecuting the case, said that late one night in January 2010, one of the women went to visit a friend who was tending bar. After that bar closed at about 2 a.m., the two women moved on to another bar and restaurant in the West Village. Alone in the back, sipping red wine, was Mr. Ouanes. He approached the women at the bar, offering to buy them drinks. Mr. David told jurors that Mr. Ouanes's age and dapper dress convinced the women that they had nothing to fear. "In his bowler hat and scarf, he appeared to be relatively harmless," the prosecutor said. The bar closed soon after, and the three went to another bar, where they shared Champagne, and the woman who later alleged she had been raped broke away to smoke hashish with a friend. Mr. Ouanes then invited the women back to the Plaza for breakfast in his two-room suite. Mr. David said that the two women began feeling ill and "passed out" on the bed in the room. When they awoke, he said, Mr. Ouanes was engaged in sex with one of the women, and she fought to free herself, eventually breaking a glass that she had intended to use as a possible weapon to slice Mr. Ouanes's throat. Her friend, who Mr. David said awoke to find her leggings had been pulled down, called hotel security. Mr. David said the police found the two women huddled in the bathroom of Mr. Ouanes's room, "so frantic, so devastated" that they could barely explain what had happened. Ms. Miller, the defense lawyer, painted a starkly different picture. She described Mr. Ouanes as an Algerian-born engineer and Canadian citizen who works for a construction company that has the Saudi royal family as a client. He spends about half of his working time assisting a Saudi prince, she said, including traveling with him. Ms. Miller did not describe the nature of the work that Mr. Ouanes, who has been married for 40 years and has been on medication since surviving a heart attack in 2008, does for the prince. The women never complained about feeling ill, she added, saying that evidence will show that they did not pass out and had a "functional tolerance" to alcohol due to their lifestyles. All three fell asleep on the bed for a while, Ms. Miller told jurors. Mr. Ouanes awoke to one of the women touching him, and the contact escalated until he said he would not pay her. Ms. Miller characterized the women's frantic reaction as theatrics. "It was at that point that the movie starts," she said, "and I mean that figuratively." Mr. Ouanes faces a charge of first-degree rape, two counts of criminal sexual acts in the first degree, one count of sexual abuse in the first degree, and other charges. If convicted on the rape charge, he could face a maximum of 25 years in prison.