Officials are moving not-so-fast in the case of an allegedly fast-fingered financier.
Prosecutors have agreed to hold off on convening a grand jury in the case of the Egyptian banker accused of violently groping a maid at the ritzy Pierre hotel, his lawyer has told The Post this morning.
“He has not been indicted,” said Lori Cohen, lawyer for Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar, 74.
“Both sides agree that further investigation is required,” she said.
A rumpled looking Omar — wearing a wrinkled suit and with his face unshaven, appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court this morning. He had posted $25,000 cash bail at 2:30 a.m., but was not officially sprung from Rikers Island until just before 9 a.m., Cohen said.
Prosecutors did not state a reason on the record for why they will investigate further before putting the case before a grand jury. But Cohen suggested that the case is not as cut and dry as initially reported — and that prosecutors are taking the time they need to sort the matter out.
Should the case go before a grand jury, Omar will testify, Cohen said.
“The DA’s office is doing the right thing by proceeding carefully and making sure they have all the evidence,” she said.
Omar, the former head of the Bank of Alexandria, a major Egyptian bank, is charged with allegedly groping a 44-year-old maid at the tony hotel — an incident that attracted greater notice because it followed on the heels of the recent alleged sex assault of a room attendnat by ex-International Monetary Fund boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the Sofitel hotel in Midtown.