 "Rape case")
Three US women claim a Saudi prince assaulted them and held them captive during three days of sex-and drug-fueled partying at a Beverly Hills mansion.
The unidentified women, who have filed a civil suit in Los Angeles against Majed Abdulaziz Al Saud, 29, say they were hired by the prince as housekeepers in late September.
The suit, filed last Thursday, alleges that the prince terrorised the women and made sexual advances that included rubbing himself against one of them and asking another "to lick my entire body."
When one of the women pleaded with him to stop, he allegedly yelled: "You're not a woman! You're nobody! I'm a prince and I'll do what I want and nobody will do anything to me."
The women also claim they saw the prince being masturbated by another man and sniffing a white powder they believed to be cocaine.
"Al Saud has violently threatened and sexually assaulted his employees and publicly shamed these innocent women in the public eye," the women's attorney Van Frish told AFP yesterday.
"This is yet another example of the use of gross wealth and power to exert emotional and physical abuse on those more vulnerable."
The prince's lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.
Frish said his clients' ordeal ended when someone called the police after hearing a woman unrelated to the case screaming as she she tried to scale the wall of the property.
The prince was arrested for allegedly trying to force that woman to perform oral sex on him.
But citing lack of evidence, authorities in Los Angeles said last week they would not pursue felony charges against Al Saud in that case. He could still face misdemeanor charges.
Frish said that during his trip to the United States in September, the prince had also abused several women during a stop in New York.
Many members of Gulf monarchies own mansions in posh Beverly Hills and it is not the first time one of them has had a run-in with the law.
A member of Qatar's royal family - Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Thani - was questioned by Beverly Hills police in September after a video surfaced showing a yellow Ferrari he owned speeding through stop signs and past pedestrians.
Al Thani, a well-known figure in international racing circles, denied he was driving the car and claimed diplomatic immunity before leaving the country.
