Saudi prince arrested at L.A. compound for alleged sex crime

A  Saudi prince was arrested at a hillside compound near Beverly Hills on Wednesday Sept. 23 after being accused of trying to force a worker to perform a sex act on him, Los Angeles police said.

Police were called to the gated property in the Beverly Glen area, within a gated community on Wallingford Drive, after a caretaker at the home reported a disturbance, officials said.

After officers interviewed people inside, a 28-year-old man identified as Saudi prince Majed Abdulaziz Al-Saud was arrested on suspicion of forced oral copulation of an adult.

He was booked and freed on $300,000 bail Thursday afternoon, jail records show. He could not immediately be reached for comment.
LAPD Officer Drake Madison said Al-Saud was booked after 4 p.m.

The LAPD has a consul liaison division that checks with foreign nations' consulates regarding diplomatic immunity, said Capt. Tina Nieto.
Police determined Al-Saud does not have immunity in this case, she said.

Some foreign royalty do have diplomatic immunity, but it depends on the dignitary's status in his home country’s government and the level of the offense he commits in the U.S., she said.
Jail records show Al-Saud is scheduled to appear in court Oct. 19.

Neighbor Tennyson Collins said a resident reported seeing a bleeding woman scream for help as she tried to scale the property’s 8-foot-high wall Wednesday afternoon.
When Collins drove home from work after 1:30 p.m., police followed his car through the gates and onto the property, which he described as a compound. The website Zillow valued the 22,000-square-foot property at $37 million.

Officers escorted some 20 people out of the house, many of them staff, Collins said.

Police said Al-Saud was renting the home. Collins said various foreign nationals have been renting out the property for weeks at a time over the last year but that the biggest incident up to Wednesday had just been a raucous party or two. One person who rented out the home stationed armed guards at the gates, he said.

“Obviously neighbors aren’t happy about it, but it is what it is,” Collins said of the international visitors.