Portland artist guilty of sex abuse after ‘mauling’ nude model, judge rules in 2nd of 4 trials

Just days after acquitting the guy in a different trial involving a different woman, Multnomah County Circuit Judge Benjamin Souede found a Portland bondage artist guilty on Wednesday of sexually abusing one of his models.

In what is known as a bench proceeding, Souede found Gabriel Weiss guilty on one count of first-degree sex abuse without a jury.

In a related case that also depended on the testimony of a woman Weiss had paid to model naked, Souede issued a bench verdict last week.

Weiss painted Chinese characters on women’s bodies and then took pictures of them for his artwork, which he released under the alias Kawiri Cascabel. Weiss, 51, was employed as an architect at the Lan Su Chinese Garden prior to his arrest.

Prosecutors in the second case characterized the assault as a mauling, claiming that Weiss repeatedly bit the lady in a private area while holding her to the ground.

During closing arguments, prosecutor Ryan Solomon stated that it was nonconsensual, painful, and deliberate.

The 21-year-old woman claimed that in January 2014, she responded to Weiss’ Craigslist ad for a nude model and posed for a routine photo shoot at Southeast Portland’s Bamboo Grove, a disused warehouse arts venue.

She claimed that she encountered Weiss in an enclosed loft at Salmon Street Studios after being employed again the next week. She claimed that Weiss kissed her after he ran passed his supplies and declared his physical attraction to her after she had undressed.

The woman said that she gave her agreement for the kiss, but she did not agree with what transpired when he repeatedly bit her.

She stated that I attempted to tell him to stop and to push his head away, but his full weight was holding me down.

She claimed that when the woman confronted Weiss at his house later, he denied her injuries.

The woman described the sexual abuse on social media in 2014 or 2015, according to the prosecution, but she chose not to disclose it.

After Weiss was arrested in March 2023, she came forward.

Souede cleared Weiss of first-degree rape in the first trial. The lady claimed that Weiss had enticed her to his house for a modeling session and then attacked her after tying her to an interior wall.

According to Souede, the first case failed to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

On Tuesday, the defense also attempted to find flaws in the second woman’s testimony, pointing out that she had spent the night at Weiss’s house during the third visit, when she had come to apologize.

She’s going to sleep in the same bed as her alleged assailant because she drank a glass of wine? Benjamin Kim, the defense lawyer, posed a rhetorical question.

“I don’t want to drive while intoxicated,” she remarked. The later behavior, the prosecutors said, was irrelevant.

Weiss did not call any witnesses or testify during either trial.

For sexual abuse, he faces a minimum obligatory term of six years and three months.

Although it might be postponed, a third trial is scheduled for next week.

Weiss is still being detained in Northeast Portland’s Inverness Jail in the protective custody section.

For The Oregonian/OregonLive, Zane Sparling reports on court proceedings and breaking news. You may contact him at zsparling@oregonian.com, 503-319-7083, or pdxzane.

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