A 27-year-old man from Long Island has been arrested for allegedly raping a Columbia University student after he drugged her with ecstasy.

Sean Ahearn, of Oakdale, met the 26-year-old woman online, and the two agreed to meet at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Battery Park City around 8 p.m. on April 7, the Daily News reported.

The suspect paid for a room and the two went upstairs. Ahearn allegedly gave the woman a drink spiked with ecstasy and then raped her after she passed out.

He was arrested by police on Saturday and has been charged with rape and sexual abuse.

Results from a rape kit and toxicology tests were pending. Ahearn posted a long message on his Facebook page early Tuesday morning stating that he is innocent.

“Still in shock just going to continue to have faith that everything happens for a reason and everything will work out. Totally blindsided by this. They know in their heart this did not happen, why would it happen what would my motive be? What would I have to gain?” he wrote in the post.

The post Man arrested for drugging, raping Columbia U. student appeared first on Metro.us.

Take it seriously
Treat your online profile as a professional asset and determine if it positions you the way you want it to. Google yourself often and see what the world sees when they look for you.

Commit to a professional online persona
You will be judged by what you post and what others do, too. Select a professional voice and spell-check your postings. Don’t post or say anything online that you wouldn’t want your grandmother or boss to see.

Monitor
Sign up for free, no-obligation alerts on a site that manages online reputations. Enter your name or other keywords and be alerted when potentially damaging materials are posted about you. At Reputation Changer, the technology crawls the “deep Web” going beyond what search engines look at to see what dangers may exist.

Take proactive control
Commit to ensuring that the entire first page of Google’s search results for your name or your company bring up websites or pages that you control.

1. Even a site like Yelp or Wikipedia portrays you in a particular way, so make sure you control the message.
2. Set your Facebook privacy settings so that nobody can tag you in a picture without your approval. Review the privacy settings of all the social media sites you use.
3.  Create online assets using your exact personal and/or company name as the title (such as .com or .net). Use social media profiles and free blogs. Update and post to these pages consistently. The volume of activity required depends on how prominent you are. The more prominent you are, the more active you must be.

Prepare for the worst and react fast
Proactively build up some messages that you can release if a negative news story breaks. If you believe that people may post negative or embarrassing things about you, try to head it off, but expect that you cannot. Once it is out there you can only react to it. If you need to apologize, do that, but don’t debate online because it drags out the conversation. Shift the conversation to the things that you want people to focus on.

By the numbers
70 percent of U.S. companies say that they have disqualified candidates based on what they find online about them. By 2014, 53 percent of all retail sales (online and offline) will be influenced by the more than 1.6 trillion searches conducted per year.

— These tips were compiled by Michael Zammuto, president of Reputation Changer, a company that helps people manage their online personas.

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We’ve seen time and time again the consequences of girls sharing intimate photos of themselves online or via text messages.

Most recently, in the Steubenville, Ohio, rape case, teenagers passed around a photo of a passed-out teenage girl by text message. The two boys involved were recently charged with raping the girl in the photo.

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  ‘I shared a photo’ PSA

“I sent a photo to someone I trusted and now, thousands of people I don’t know, know me,” the girl writes on cards in the video, which resembles the YouTube video Amanda Todd posted before she committed suicide.

It is true that teens today need to be extra careful with the way they behave online, but are PSA such as this one effective, or do they just place more blame on the girls, rather than the boys who spread the photos?

Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant

The post New PSA warns girls to not share sexy pictures appeared first on Metro.us.

Online dating is a reality of the love game, whether you’re just looking around or on a serious quest for a lifelong partner. Sites like OkCupid, Match.com and eHarmony try to make finding someone simple, but they can be disappointing and frustrating. Now, one solution to the e-dating conundrum is gaining traction: consultants. These pros help clients strategize and punch up their profiles to stand out in the competitive world of digitalized courtship.

“Most people are not very good at online dating,” says Evan Marc Katz, dating coach and founder of  the e-dating consulting service eCyrano. “It’s like the gym. You don’t lose weight by signing up for the gym. That’s why people hire personal trainers — to show them how to use the equipment.”

eCyrano rewrites clients’ profiles based on a lengthy questionnaire and detailed phone call. Katz, who dated online for 10 years before meeting his wife offline at a party,  says his team of freelance writers promise profiles that are more authentic than what most users write for themselves.   He contends that the majority of online-dating fumbles involve unrealistic expectations: “Online dating gives people the illusion of choice, not actual choice.”

Then, of course, there are the photos. Companies like New York Image Consultant offer services like a Re-Imaging package, which  includes hairstyling and makeup for photos in a range of outfits and poses, plus Photoshopping, for $1,500. Consultant Amanda Sanders puts it bluntly: “The reality is, they choose your picture over someone else’s because it captures their eye. The text isn’t as important as the visual aspect.” Sanders works with clients who travel to New York for her firm’s services. Like Katz, Sanders asserts that her business vastly improves a client’s chances. As always, though, the face to face date is up to you.

The post Will an online dating consultant help you find love? appeared first on Metro.us.