Metro

A date with the ‘rapist’

Post reporter Mandy Stadtmiller (ROBERT MILLER)

He was loud, boisterous, complimentary and charming — and now he’s accused of rape.

The man being called the Riverside Rapist, a smooth, handsome, 42-year-old, French-born TV reporter named Hugues-Denver Akassy, hit on me as I shopped at the Fifth Avenue Apple store.

Akassy — now charged with raping a tourist last week and facing lesser raps in an alleged two-year reign of terror against women on streets, in sports clubs and even on fire escapes — was so friendly, so charismatic.

In May 2007, we met for our first and only date at a restaurant he described in an e-mail as a “cosy [sic] cave-bar called Shalel right on the corner of 70th & Columbus.”

Also right near sprawling, darkly lit Central Park.

RIVERSIDE PARK ‘RAPIST’ HAS DELUSIONS OF SEXUAL GRANDEUR

He was impeccably dressed, and Akassy and I drank a bottle of wine together in one of the private corners, with a curtain drawn.

He immediately started lavishing me with compliments. I was so beautiful and sophisticated and intelligent. I was hungry, but he said we didn’t need much food and poured us more red wine.

Less than an hour into the date, he pressed himself into me and started kissing me intensely. Looking back, I shudder at how aggressive he was — and I regret not listening to my internal warning bell.

Akassy then suggested we go for a walk along Central Park, where he spoke fondly of John Lennon and Strawberry Fields and held my hand all too possessively. It was unnerving and deceptive. I had just met him.

“I guess one of the beauties and mysteries of the life’s journey are special people you meet along the way,” he wrote me in a broken-English e-mail shortly after we met in March.

When I started the dating column “About Last Night” for The Post later that summer, I decided to write about my awful date with Akassy, calling him “Mr. Whip It Out” and explaining just how “uncomfortable” he made me.

What I didn’t say then I’m ready to tell now. That night, when we walked to Central Park, when he took me to the water, his kissing very quickly led to his leading my hand down to his pants and begging me to touch him. I told him I didn’t feel comfortable, but he was so aggressive. He kept unzipping his pants, making me touch him, and trying to put his hands down my dress. I remember telling him I wasn’t going to have sex with him, and he was so insistent.

And then he tried to guilt me into doing it. He yelled at me and turned angry. He said I was a “sexy brat provocateur.” I was stunned.

And lucky. Very lucky. The whole thing was like a terrible dream. We left Central Park, and I stared down at the dirty sand in the park as he rambled about how difficult it was for him to deal with a cellphone bill. The entire night was revolting.

Learning about the Russian tourist who alleges that Akassy raped her Tuesday, the word to describe how I feel goes beyond “horrified.” I’ve always imagined myself to be so tough, so untouchable, so essentially protected in Manhattan. People tell me I must have good guardian angels.

I’m starting to believe them now.

The problem with men like Akassy is that they turn romantic idealists like me into doubters — because I want to believe men are essentially wonderful hearted and don’t try to bully you into sex in Central Park on a first date.

Akassy ruins it. He ruined my night then, and he ruins the reputation of all the good guys who just want to take a romantic stroll along the park.

My column was where I deployed my revenge.

I wrote of telling him to stop “with just enough legal pull to indicate I-will-prosecute-you-Mr.-Whip-It-Out-oh-yes-I-will.” I almost wanted to warn the entire city of Akassy.

After our date, I ignored his text messages, which turned increasingly ugly.

When his Orbite TV show continued to e-mail me newsletters, I wrote back, bitterly, “Thank you, Hugues-Denver! Am hoping you’ve been able to keep it in your pants.”

I received an e-mail back telling me of my “insanity.” A common pattern, apparently. One of his accusers says he continued to terrorize her, writing that she was a “pathetic retarded girl.”

It makes me shudder to think of this, at first glance, friendly, boisterous man I met at the Apple store by chance.

He seemed so normal, e-mailing me once that we were “just two dear companions who enjoy each other company to explore the beauties of life.”

No, Akassy — you are beauty turned inside out.

mstadtmiller@nypost.com