The son of a Sydney nightclub owner says he felt his life was "completely destroyed" when news he had sexually assaulted a young woman broke.
Luke Andrew Lazarus, 23, has enjoyed a privileged upbringing.
He lives in the exclusive suburb Vaucluse with his family, and his father Andrew Lazarus runs a number of venues, including Soho in Kings Cross and the Eastern Hotel in Bondi Junction.
"I had the world at my feet," Lazarus said.
But when news broke he had been found guilty of having sexual intercourse without consent with an 18-year-old woman at the back of his father's nightclub Soho in May 2013, he says he felt "utterly inconsolable".
"My life, at least in Australia, has been completely destroyed and now I have to live the rest of my life knowing every single person in Australia, or at least Sydney, knows I have been convicted of a sex offence," he cried.
Lazarus repeatedly broke down at his sentence hearing on Thursday as he conceded he felt an "inflated sense of power and entitlement" while at Soho.
"I believe in Soho I had more confidence than any other place."
But he didn't agree this self-assurance would have meant he thought his victim was consenting when she wasn't.
"I still 100 per cent state that I believe everything that happened that on that night was consensual."
The young woman had told her trial she had tried to leave after Lazarus kissed her but that he had said "No, stay".
Soon after he told her, "put your f***ing hands on the wall, get on the floor and arch your back".
Scared, she complied.
After sexually assaulting her, Lazarus told her to add her name to a list of conquests he kept.
In a victim impact statement read to court the woman said, "I never knew what it was like to feel so helpless".
"I'll never be who I was ... A part of me died that day, the part that trusted others, the part that saw the good in everyone."
In the weeks leading up to the attack, Lazarus, the court heard, had ended a relationship with an American girl with whom he was "obsessed" because she would not uphold his Greek family's traditions and they didn't approve.
Psychiatrist Dr Chris Ricard-bell said Lazarus was suffering from adjustment disorder as a result of the break up.
Lazarus is due to be sentenced on Friday.
