ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) – Silvano Orsi likens his ordeal to a horror movie.

One moment he’s sipping fruit juice at a posh Swiss hotel with a friend while living in Geneva. The next, he says, he’s being pummeled by a stranger – an Arab sheik whose brother is now ruler of the United Arab Emirates.

Unemployed for more than two years, Orsi is now back in the United States, living with his parents. He walks with a limp, suffers nightmares and rarely leaves home except to get medicine or meet a friend for coffee.

“I didn’t do anything to instigate this,” the 38-year-old said. “I will never swallow what he’s done to me. It doesn’t matter who he is.”

Sheik Fallah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan was charged in Switzerland in November with suspicion of assault with a dangerous instrument, which carries a maximum three-year prison sentence. A Swiss magistrate will decide whether to recommend a criminal trial.

The sheik acknowledged the men got into a heated scuffle when he overheard someone remark that “this sheik is gay,” according to a transcript of a closed-door hearing in March. But he insisted he never struck Orsi nor arranged to pay him $13,000 in hush money.

Defense attorney Marco Crisante declined to discuss specifics of the case.

“Justice will do its job,” Crisante said. “I prefer keeping all my opinions for the [judge].”

Calls to the press office of the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Washington were not returned.

Orsi, the son of Italian immigrants, grew up in suburban Rochester. He said he moved to Geneva in 2000 to become head of international operations at Swisscom AG after working in a similar job in Rome for three years. In 2002, he joined a telecommunications consulting firm that dealt with chiefly Middle Eastern clients.

Orsi said he had no idea who Sheik Fallah was before they met on the evening of Aug. 19, 2003.

In court papers and in an interview, Orsi said he was chatting with a Saudi friend near the bar at La Reserve hotel when a tipsy, casually dressed passerby asked where he was from. The stranger offered him a drink.

Orsi declined, saying he didn’t drink alcohol, but the man sent over a bottle of Dom Perignon. Orsi said he politely waved his thanks but left the unopened champagne on the table because he was worried the offer was a ploy to force a confrontation.

Fifteen minutes later, Orsi alleged, the man suddenly came up behind him, jostled his glasses, sat in his lap and tried to kiss and fondle him. When Orsi protested, the assault began, he said. At one point, Orsi said, the man removed his belt and whipped him with the metal buckle.

The beating continued as Orsi retreated to the reception desk, he said.

Orsi said he then learned that the man was a son of Emirates leader Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Sheik Fallah’s elder brother, Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, was appointed president when their father died in November 2004.

Sheik Fallah said at a March 13 hearing in the Geneva magistrate’s office that he was annoyed when Orsi refused the champagne but confronted him “after I was called gay,” according to a transcript obtained by The Associated Press.

The sheik said he and Orsi grabbed and shook each other violently for about 30 seconds before his bodyguards intervened. He said he took off his belt because Orsi “is bigger than me” and “I was just at the very point of striking him with my belt but we were separated.”

Orsi said he sustained a herniated disk, nerve damage in his right leg and post-traumatic stress disorder. He provided a letter from an American doctor in Rome who certified him as “100 percent disabled” pending surgery that could cost up to $80,000.

Orsi said he moved back to Rome in late 2003 after being confronted at a restaurant by the sheik’s associates, who threatened to shoot him if he didn’t drop his complaint.

Upon returning home last summer, Orsi said he discovered he wasn’t eligible for health disability benefits because he hasn’t worked in the United States for 10 years. He appealed to the U.S. government to get medical treatment and to seek an explanation and an apology from the Emirates.

He said he plans to sue the sheik and the hotel for unspecified damages.

“This has ruined my life,” Orsi said. “I have to defend myself, no one else is doing it for me.”