"HBO Documentary Films Sex Crimes Unit Original Air Date on June 20, 2011" "== sync, corrected by elderman ==" "This is, like, a good thing." "I'm in Manhattan doing this interview, and I'm just like, thinking that this happened just a few blocks away." "Sometimes I'm like, separate from that person that this happened to, and I wish I could somehow travel through time and see her, and tell her everything is gonna be okay." "(Phone ringing)" "Hi Ms. Cooper, it's Lisa Friel at the DA's office." "You got a sergeant around?" "Hey, Al, how are you?" "Just calling to see what's going on, if anything came in overnight or anything, that we should know about." "Nothing, quiet?" "So would you pull that file for me so I can read the closing memo?" "I don't have to tell you, the key to this is getting the whole truth out, and seeing if we have something salvageable at the end, but certainly getting it all out before the grand jury." "All right, bye." "Go over the facts for me, would you?" "It's two victims, same night, separated by about an hour." "You know, she was 18 years old at the time, and was looking at him like," ""I'm not sure what exactly it is you expect me to do."" "Oh, this is the one where she smacked him yes." "In the head with the newspaper..." "With the newspaper, and it's all on video." "Friel:" "And he's saying words to the effect of, he wants to be with her, and she's like, "You're my father, get off me."" "How did he strike you when you talked to him?" "I believed him." "He's admitting that he was selling drugs..." "Lisa:" "I'd like to hear what his version of events are, 'cause if there's something wrong with the story," "I'd rather hear about it before we indict him then afterwards." "...Making sure there's nothing in the victim's background that we don't know about that will surprise us at trial." "Since there really is a reasonable likelihood we might use this, we should give them copies of all of this." "We subpoenaed the victim's phone records, as well as the suspect's phone records, and they corroborate what the victim had told us." "And oh, of course, the other thing, Lauren, we got DNA results back." "Great, Andrea told me." "So I just got word that there was a match to the defendant." "Wonderful!" "Good news." "Let the mom know." "I will." "I've called the defense attorney." "I'm hoping we can work something out that serves the interest of justice, but doesn't have this little girl having to testify against her father." "Okay?" "Linda Fairstein:" "Today, a woman walking into a police station, calling 911, making a complaint about sexual assault, or a domestic assault, really has no idea of what the history of these crimes was, and that as recently as 20 years ago," "marital rape was not a crime, there was no such thing as stalking, there was no DNA, there was no science to say she's right or she's wrong about identifying her attacker." "Acquaintance rapes simply weren't prosecuted almost anywhere in America." "Martha Bashford:" "Hey, got a second?" "Hey!" "How are you?" "Good, how are you?" "Just fine." "I wanted to update you." "Remember Zambrano, the club marquee guy?" "Sure, yeah." "He was sentenced today, so..." "What was the promise again?" "So he pled to the attempt kidnapping two, as the sexually motivated felony, and he pled to the attempt rape one, so he pled to both counts." "His lawyer said he watched the tape, the surveillance tape, with him, and that the guy was crying watching the tape." "You know, this woman, like many others, went to a club to have a good time, she had too much to drink, her friends lost track of her, and then, what's just amazing from the surveillance tapes is," "she's kind of just passed out, sleeping it off on a couch, and this guy comes up to her and just starts fondling her, and manipulating her, and then he picks her up and carries her," "drags her down the steps, and nobody stops him." "Nobody says, "Are you okay?" or "What's going on?"" "You finally see on the tape, this one guy coming over, and I think, "Oh, he's gonna help her,"" "and all he does is pick up one leg and move it out of the way so he can go up the stairs." "Then at the end of the day, he carries her, in the winter, no coat, no purse, nothing, carries her out of the club." "Nobody says a thing." "The security doesn't say a thing, it's just unbelievable." "This particular guy was good-looking." "He was a very nice-looking, presentable guy." "That's one of those things, you know, nobody believes, you've done this longer than I have, that, so many times I hear from people, you know," ""Oh, he's so good-looking, and there's no way he would have done this."" "And had we not had this on tape to prove exactly what we knew happened, which we don't in most cases, nobody'd believe it, you know?" "He's a good looking guy, he's got a girlfriend, he can have sex, why would he do this to someone passed out?" "Answer, damned if I know, but we know they do." "He said she was so drunk, he had to actually flag down a cab to go to his car, which was parked like three blocks away, 'cause he couldn't carry her that far, and she could not walk." "So he puts her in his car, and he said he kept trying to shake her awake and she actually had bruises on both shoulders, exactly where, on the video, he was just trying where he said he was..." "To keep her awake and shake her awake." "Wake her up, yeah." "Drove out to his apartment in queens, he had to carry her up the stairs, he said he had sex with her then, and had sex with her again in the morning." "So he actually admits that he had sex with her when she's in that condition?" "Yeah!" "But this poor girl, she wakes up, she doesn't know who this guy is..." "Or where she is, or have any idea." "Or where she is." "I mean, how bizarre is this?" "He winds up driving her back to Manhattan." "How's she doing now?" "She's doing good, she's doing good." "One of the detectives spoke to her just the other day, and said she's actually looking into suing the nightclub, which..." "Good, you know?" "And your frye hearing pled, too?" "It did." "Kind of disappointing, you know?" "First of all, it shows how old I am, I had never heard of little Wayne." "I had no idea who he was." "I've vaguely heard of little Wayne, but I'm only a few years younger than you." "So, speaking of which, I'm so tired," "I spent three hours last night doing James' financial aid application." "Oh, really?" "I think he's gonna apply to tufts early, and their early decision date is Sunday." "Oh, wow!" "Three hours doing this application." "Been there, done that." "And then by the time I'm done with the application, now I'm panicking about money, so now I'm sitting there with my checkbook, and my bank statement, and I'm trying to figure that all out, and then it was two in the morning." "When the sex crimes prosecution unit was set up in this office in 1974, it was the first in the country." "When I came in, there was one person in the sex crimes unit, and now there are 53 people handling sex crimes cases." "Fairstein:" "We were teaching ourselves how to do this, because there was no model for this work anywhere in America." "Morgenthau:" "If somebody's burglarized, or somebody's robbed, they'll get over it." "They may look over their shoulder a little bit more than they would have, but when somebody's been raped, when a woman's been raped," "I don't think they ever get over it." "So they're entitled to special consideration and special handling in the criminal justice system." "Can you grab Melissa and tell me what we're doing on the Rios case?" "Friel:" "Remind me of how this one happened." "Coleen Balbert:" "The complainant was in her van, and she was driving, she saw these two males, and there was a conversation with them." "She was prostituting." "So they go to a parking lot area, and the defendant pulls out a gun." "And the defendant and the un-apprehended male then begin taking turns, orally sodomizing her and vaginally raping her." "So while one is vaginally raping her, they're forcing her to perform oral sex on the other, the other one's..." "Yeah." "And then they swap, and then they swap, and then they swap." "And then one of the things that she did was, she kept the semen in her mouth until evidence collection arrived." "It's amazing." "Oh, it's amazing!" "It just goes to show the level of determination to be able to try to apprehend these people." "There's no defense in the penal law that somebody is a prostitute and has a drug problem." "That doesn't make them fair game for rapists and nobody deserves to be raped, no matter who they are and what they do, and so she's just gotta totally lay it out there in direct." "And she's been very honest with you, so..." "She's been very honest, and, you know, I think half the battle is jury selection, is making sure that you don't have people that think that they assume the risk, as prostitutes." "So that's basically what happened with that case." "And then in 2008, he raped the complainant at knifepoint, the nanny, on her way to work at 8:00 in the morning..." "Friel:" "The case you tried..." "Balbert: ..." "That he just got convicted on." "Friel:" "Oh, the one he got convicted on." "Balbert:" "Right, after the jury took, what was it, Melissa, a lunch break?" "Penabad:" "A lunch break." "Balbert:" "He wound up sentencing him 15 to life." "So, he had said, basically, if we were willing to maybe offer concurrent time on the new case, which..." "Friel:" "Over my dead body!" "Over my dead body!" "So, and I basically said that to him." "How old is he?" "In the 2006 case, I think he committed the crime when he was 19." "Okay." "Am I right?" "Penabad:" "Yeah." "Okay." "So that makes him 22." "Well this is a guy we really want to put away for as long as humanly possible." "You know, when he starts as young as that, attacking strangers, and two years later is attacking more strangers, this is a guy who is going to keep doing this as long as he's physically able, so..." "All right, you guys, thank you very much." "Fairstein:" "When I came to the practice of law in 1972, the laws in America, all over this country, were so archaic, that the overwhelming number of sexual assault cases were not even able to get into a court of law." "In 1970, there were more than 1,000 rapes in New York City that year, only 18 of the cases resulted in conviction." "Not because prosecutors were getting into court with their victims and losing cases, but because these old laws did not let us take victims into court." "So, the legal word is "corroboration."" "The law required corroboration a victim's testimony, and that meant in the category of crime least likely to be witnessed by anybody else, there had to be independent evidence of what the victim was saying." "Morgenthau:" "I think, going back to the 16th century, the law was protecting the man, and the man's honor." "It said you had to hold a woman in a rape case to a higher standard than you would in an ordinary case." "It was 1974 when the New York state legislature voted to eliminate the corroboration requirement." "The night before that vote, the New York times lead editorial said it was abhorrent to think that a man could be convicted solely on the unsupported testimony of a woman." "Melissa Mourges:" "This is the building where this happened." "That's the entrance." "We're on west 94th Street in Manhattan." "On August 6, 1993, Natasha Alexenko was 20 years old." "She was a college student, and she was on her way home from work as a veterinarian's assistant." "My mother, as I was growing up, heard stories about how I was going to move to New York one day." "She got to the point where she heard it so often she knew there was no way she was gonna stop me." "Oh my God, we were so young back then, it's so sweet." "I know, right?" "It's so sweet to see these." "I know." "The city represented, like, freedom for us, it represented creativity for us." "It also represented acceptance." "Oh, my God, my hair is horrible!" "That's graduation!" "I was, like, a flower girl, I guess, at my aunt's wedding, (Whispering) Oh, my God, it's amazing!" "With my Duran Duran shoes," "I remember that's what those were called." "It's amazing!" "Ballin:" "And I think Natasha, for me, growing up as a young creative person, she was like my muse." "This is my favorite photo of you, of all time." "Fifteen, I think I was in this photo." "Alexenko:" "We grew up dreaming up our life in Manhattan together..." "Both:" "The hair!" "He was gonna be a fashion designer, I was going to be a famous filmmaker, and we would live happily in the city of our dreams." "The day of the incident," "I took a cab to the corner of my street, and I proceeded to walk to my apartment, and certainly didn't think anything of it." "And as she came through the door at about midnight, she was standing in the vestibule..." "One minute, nobody was there, and then all of a sudden, someone was right there with a gun." "And he racked the slide on the automatic, shoved the gun in her back..." "I'd never seen a gun in my life." "Mourges:" "He led her out of the elevator, up these stairs, to the bicycle storage area." "And, at the top of the landing was where he said," ""Okay, take off all your clothes."" "He robbed her, then he leaned her over this banister." "I didn't expect to be raped, absolutely not." "And he sodomized her, raped her, sodomized her, and raped her again, the entire time he had the gun to her head, threatening to kill her." "Physically I was there, but I almost felt like I was looking down at myself." "And I think what was going through my head was, my family, my mom!" "Gosh, how is my mom going to handle something like this?" "Bashford:" "You can see where she was attacked, the smudges on the dusty railing she was forced to bend over, and put her hands on." "Mourges:" "And then he stood behind her, where he sexually assaulted her." "I saw absolutely no reason for him to let me live." "I saw his face, it wasn't like he was wearing a mask." "So, I really was bracing myself for the inevitable gunshot to the head." "Finally when he was through, he told her to count to 10, that if she screamed he was going to kill her." "He pointed the gun at me, and he started to walk back, backwards, and I could hear him running down the staircase." "She waited just a second and then she tore down the stairs to her apartment." "How did I collect my clothes, did I take the elevator, did I take the stairs?" "She ran in the front door, and her roommate described her screaming the most bloodcurdling screams she had ever heard in her life." "They opened the door and I just collapsed, just completely collapsed, and blacked out." "And that was really the last thing I remember until I woke up." "We were up against a public that had been grown, raised, and educated to think that nice girls weren't raped, and their sisters and mothers weren't raped, and the women who were had asked for it." "I got five daughters so, I mean, that in itself has been an incentive to me to make sure that, you know, justice is done in every rape case." "Fairstein:" "It was the only crime I've ever encountered that people viewed as victim-precipitated, that it was something this woman did that made her a victim." "I absolutely blamed myself." "I went through every single turn and situation I went through that night." ""Gosh, if I only didn't go this way." "If I only did this instead."" "It was probably the first time, ever in my life, where I was at a loss for words." "Why didn't I just elbow him and just scream?" "You know, if she had been hit by a taxi, or if she was a victim of burglary or something, that's easier to process." "It's just kind of hard to process a rape." "And even to the point of gosh, I could have done something, and I would have been shot, and that's okay, 'cause at least I would have had my dignity, and at least I would have got him back." "I remember when it happened, I couldn't sleep." "I called my work at nighttime, and early morning, I went, I rent a van, and drove all the way from Saint Catherines to New York City." "When I saw her, she was in bad shape, poor kid." "After the rape, all I wanted was my life to go back to being normal, whatever normal is." "And, in fact, I went to work the next morning." "And I tell her, "Come on," ""let's put everything in the van and come to Saint Catherines."" "And it was a year to the day from when I moved into that apartment initially, that we went back to Canada." "You know, Natasha had these great expectations coming to the city." "Really, the city had failed her, and I think all of her dreams had kind of just shattered at that moment." "Is this what we put into evidence?" "Yeah." "Balbert:" "So there were six of them in this lineup." "She looked at number four, picked him out of a lineup immediately, and was hysterical crying when she viewed the lineup." "You know, the fact that she can remember this guy two years after the fact is telling if she's only had one encounter with this guy." "It speaks to the trauma that the defendant really, yeah, inflicted upon her." "That she went through." "This was just not one of her prostitution experiences." "This was completely different." "This was rape." "And a brutal one at that." "So, let's talk about what we need to do from this point forward." "We have to divvy up the witnesses." "I know that there's a bunch of police witnesses that we need to speak with." "In going through all the paperwork and the police dd5's, there was a lot of people who responded that were night watch." "So..." "Night watch is tough to get?" "Very tough to get, so that's probably even more difficult than the victim, is getting night watch to show up." "We might be going to night watch." "(Laughing)" "Balbert:" "Our job is a lot of hunting down people," "(laughing) Whether it's your victim, your cop..." "So we need to get the victim, first and foremost." "You, me, and ed will go take a ride up and go..." "Balbert:" "You're trying to do the right thing, you know you're trying to do the right thing, and sometimes people just don't care." "They're like, "I'm sorry, I don't want to deal with this, I put this behind me," ""I've moved on with my life."" "And we're like, "Yeah, well, we've indicted this case," ""so you can't just kind of move on with your life."" "Hey Eddie, its Coleen, can you let me know if Wednesday afternoon works for you to go take a ride out to find the complainant in the Rios case?" "Balbert:" "You need to definitely be thick-skinned." "You can't get upset over a lot of things, otherwise the job will just..." "We shouldn't be too long." "No, yeah, that's fine." "Penabad:" "Sometimes you get yelled at by your victims, by your cops, you know, and, you know, the subject matter," "I think if you take your victim's stories too personally, or you get too invested it can be a problem, so..." "I think what we need to do, too, is go up and speak with the medical examiner on the case." "Go over the evidence, go through what was recovered from the scene, what was tested, and what the results were." "(Phone ringing)" "I wanted to update you on this new case that I had involving mansion." "So basically, she's at a club with a couple girlfriends, it's called mansion." "They're drinking, they're dancing, her friends see her meet this guy, who was like a friend of a friend, and then they start dancing together, and you know how like that smoke then comes up on the dance floor?" "I've seen it on TV." "(Laughs) Yes. (Laughs)" "I can't say that I have been there to see it come up." "Well, that happens, and then the friends, like, lose her." "And they have no idea where she is." "She has no memory, then, until she wakes up at, like, 6:00 in the morning, in the hallway of an apartment building on the Upper East Side, and her buttons are, like, sort of half undone, but she has all her stuff," "she has her cell phone, her wallet, so she's like," ""I don't think I was robbed, what is going on?"" "So she talks to the doorman, and the doorman is like," ""Oh, no, you came in with the guy, I didn't really think anything of it." ""Here's his name, here's his number, if you want to call him."" "So she doesn't go to the hospital, unfortunately, that day." "She goes to work the next day, and tells a co-worker and the co-worker's like," ""You have to go to the hospital."" "She goes to a hospital, ends up at a hospital in Manhattan, a rape kit is done, tox is done." "Mm-hmm." "Tox comes back negative, yeah." "Which isn't surprising, because she waited." "She didn't go soon enough." "Although, I just have this feeling that maybe she was drugged, but we'll never be able to prove that." "And then what about the rape kit results?" "So the rape kit came back with vaginal swabs..." "Positive?" "Positive, that they found semen." "Okay." "So we're waiting on those results." "So I have my hopes up." "The DNA will tell us." "There we go." "That's it, all right, great." "Yes." "We can set up a tentative date, however, you know, we do have enough for a court order, so I just want to tell you that we will be going to court to get one to have him give a DNA sample, okay?" "Friel:" "Cute suit today!" "Woman:" "Thank you." "All right." "So we're waiting for the rape kit results." "We were waiting for the results." "I spoke to you about it and you said, let's wait for the ME's office to get back to us." "Right." "So they did, and semen was found in her underwear." "I then get a call from the ME's office saying yes, we found semen in the underwear, but unfortunately, there's no sperm in the semen." "Oh." "He's..." "This sample is aspermic." "Ugh." "So..." "So, either the person who had it is sterile, or had a vasectomy..." "I know it's him, but we can't prove it." "Yeah." "Ugh." "We've had this once or twice before, 'cause there's just no DNA in semen, right." "The DNA's in the sperm, and..." "No, you're right, I mean..." "There's really nothing else we can do on that." "It's disappointing." "Yeah, it's really disappointing." "Bring her in, tell her face to face and, um, is she getting counseling?" "Yes." "We know she's a sexual assault victim, we just are not going to be able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt." "Okay." "Okay." "Disappointing, but thanks." "Thanks so much." "No, thank you!" "Thanks for all your hard work." "Okay." "All right." "Legislative update." "Do we have..." "Well we got a separate place for DV, and most of the update is the DV stuff, right?" "I printed out the..." "I think I probably did, too." "Governor signed this though, didn't he?" "Yes." "Oh, okay." "Fairstein:" "The elimination of the corroboration requirement was the first step in a long chain of legislative reform that continued throughout the '70s, '80s, '90s." "That's something else." "Until 1975, when the rape shield law was passed, witnesses knew that if they reported crimes, their entire personal history, sexual history if they had one, was going to be fair game on the witness stand." "I have the New York state's coalition against domestic violence, their, um, their summary of it." "Okay." "Fairstein:" "Before the rape shield law intervened, the defense was allowed to cross-examine the victim about any possible sexual encounter she had, on the theory, again an old British saying, that a woman who was previously unchaste would be likely to have intercourse with anyone," "even a stranger who climbed through her window." "These are all laws signed into..." "Yes." "By the governor, right." "And these are passed by..." "Passed by the governor's assistant." "Delivered to the governor but not signed yet?" "No, not delivered to the governor yet..." "The big change was that you couldn't question a witness about her sex life, which, of course, no woman should have to answer when the case is a rape case." "I don't see anything else you have to do, your job has gotten simpler for my meetings since the, since the Albany government has passed so few bills, yeah." "And has done so little on our kind of stuff." "Where's, uh..." "Do me a favor?" "Is it up there?" "Yeah, let me see that." "Color printed!" "Oh, very nice!" "(Laughing)" "All right." "I want this." "If they have the Caesar dressing..." "they're the oddest place in the world." "Caesar salad without Caesar dressing, but..." "Sometimes they have it." "My kind of place!" "(Laughs)" "Right, yeah, yeah!" "All right, see if she'll do that, thanks." "Friel:" "One of the many things that makes victims vulnerable in the city, is how much, you know, they drink," "and they just become such targets for some of these predators." "Some guys who just either hang out in the club, or they hang out outside, at like 5 after 4:00, and they just watch how, you know, you sway." "I'm telling you, if they brought back prohibition and they could actually enforce it, most of us would lose our jobs." "We just had that case with Martha and Melissa where that guy was using club marquee as, basically, his fishing ground." "Woman:" "That's the one with the video?" "Yeah, that's the one where we recovered the video." "That video made that case." "Friel:" "I tell ya, that's the way..." "Friel:" "It makes it!" "Think of the number of cases that we've been able to make with intoxicated females." "All the ones I can think of have video in them, whether it's the cop case that Coleen has, the one you're talking about..." "You learn, as technology changed..." "I mean, when ed and I started doing this in the '80s, there was no video, there was no cell phones, a lot of this stuff, computers to get records from..." "There wasn't any..." "There was probably video, you just probably didn't know how to turn on the recorder." "(All laughing) Oh, shut up!" "I went over it just so many times." "It was VCRs!" "Friel:" "The first security systems that I remember were VCRs, and even if you got there in seven days, cause they kept using the same VHS tape, the quality was just awful." "But look, we've learned the hard way, even with the new, much better quality video stuff, if you don't get there quickly, it's gone." "And I think there probably was a time many, many years ago," "I know there was, when, if a girl, all these stories you're talking about, she doesn't really know what happened." "If she went to the desk sergeant and said, you know," ""I was out last night, and I don't remember anything, and I woke up naked somewhere," ""and I think somebody raped me,"" "the desk sergeant would say," ""Hey, honey, if you don't remember, how am I supposed to figure out what happened?" ""You don't even know what happened."" "Right, ed?" "Retired detective?" "Tacchi:" "There is still something to that." "Right." "(Laughing)" "There is something to that." "Friel:" "But, uh, you know, one of the..." "Hi, Artie!" "Artie:" "Hi." "Can we do it in say 15, 20 minutes?" "Absolutely, I'll come back." "Sure." "No problem." "When we've finish eating?" "Woman:" "If you want, you can put it in my, uh..." "Artie:" "Put it in your office?" "Woman:" "Yeah." "People who are raped by strangers tend to report right away," "I mean, pretty soon after it happened." "People who are raped by acquaintances, the exact opposite is true, so our average case is, late report, no medical records, no injuries, and trying to put something back together." "Artie McConnell:" "Um, defendant drives around in a livery cab." "At about 3:00 in the morning, he goes and picks up a woman who is just getting off of work at scores." "She's a dancer at scores." "And at some point he pulls the car over, jumps in the back seat, and attacks her." "He's laying on top of her, she has the presence of mind to reach back and get the door open, the door opens up, and they both sort of spill out onto the street." "The defendant, the driver, goes immediately back, almost immediately back to the same spot where he picks up the scores dancer, and picks up a group of early 20s women who had just left a club." "When they get to the diner, our victim decides she doesn't wanna go to the diner." "Um..." "The cab driver's given five extra dollars to take her home." "They're driving uptown, she notices that he's overshot her block, she starts to get worried, he turns around, and pulls over on 2nd Avenue, and he gets in the back, he jumps on top of her," "he performs oral sex on her, and then vaginally rapes her." "With the first attempt rape victim we have her testimony, obviously, we have the 911 call, which is really, really strong." "These girls happen to take pictures of themselves out that night?" "On their phone cameras or something?" "I don't know, I don't know." "No, 'cause, you know, it's just more of a juxtaposition of it, if there happened to be a picture they took of their happy faces, her in the dress that's relevant, and you can put that in, you know, and juxtapose..." "Yeah, that's great." "How happy they looked before, with the screaming, crying victim." "I don't know how to do it on my cell phone, but apparently everybody can do it!" "I wouldn't be surprised." "I didn't even think of that, but it was a birthday party, and I'm sure one of them had a camera." "Oh, I'm sure!" "Oh, I'm sure somebody took pictures." "So ask somebody definitely." "Okay." "To find a picture of her happy in that dress." "One thing I should mention about the sexual assault examination that was done, there was redness to the fourchette, which I understand to be a fairly typical injury when there's forced penetration." "Yeah, to the extent there's ever any injury." "Right." "That's kind of the hallmark injury." "And the examiner told me that, one reason why there might not have been a tearing in this situation rather than redness, is because he's performing oral sex on her first, which is providing extra lubrication." "When people have consensual sex, women adjust, because that hurts when you get hit in the wrong place, so that the force was enough to leave red marks meant she wasn't in a position to adjust," "which would be consistent with she's stuck on the bottom, underneath a guy on top of her in a backseat." "He still denies pretty much everything with the first victim, but with the second one, with the completed rape, he admits that there was, um, kissing and touching, um, and things like that." "He's obviously, you know, has to adjust based on what he knows is the DNA..." "But he's accommodating the DNA evidence." "Exactly." "So that's probably where it's going to go." ""The first one's a prostitute, and the second one consented," ""and I lied the first time I talked to the police because I was scared."" "The DNA stuff." "Here's the seat skin stain." "So, victim is included as a possible donor to the above sample, and he cannot be excluded." "Right." "So that's with the seat skin stain." "The basketball shorts stain is..." "Um..." "We should have somebody else do this with you." "It would be nice." "I mean one, to help you, but two, to learn from you, too." "We've got so many junior people." "We'll have to think about that." "Yeah." "I'll tell you one thing, it would be good to have, um, a female second seat, if only because if he testifies, his distaste for women is so visceral, it comes across when Jessica interviews him at special victims." "Yeah." "It will be such an impact just watching him interact with a female ADA, and I think that, that alone would make just, a real impact..." "Would make the case." "Yeah." "All right, thanks, you guys!" "Hey." "Hey, Lisa." "Hey guys, what are you doing back so early?" "Case is over." "He pled." "Why now?" "Don't know?" "We don't know." "He just saw the light?" "I don't know." "I think it's just gamesmanship on his part, he pushed it as far as he could." "You were picking jurors already, right?" "We had five jurors." "Lynn:" "We had five." "So he pleaded to a count on each victim?" "Yes, the top count for each victim." "So rape one, and attempted rape one." "Victims are gonna be really relieved." "Absolutely." "Very, very relieved." "Absolutely." "Did you call either of them yet?" "No, we came right here." "We'll call..." "Can I speak to Monica, please?" "It's Artie McConnell from the DA's office." "I got some good news." "He pled guilty, so, no trial..." "Yep." "You don't have to come in, you don't have to go through all that stuff we talked about." "You've been really brave, and you've been really, really cooperative, and it makes all the difference for us." "The fact that you called 911 right away, and that you remembered that license plate, and you were smart enough to fight him off and brave enough to call and report it, and to go through all this for a year and a half, we really, really appreciate it." "How'd she sound?" "Was she relieved?" "McConnell:" "Of course, yeah." "That's great." "Although she..." "She was gonna be good." "I mean, she was gonna be a..." "She was ready to go get him." "She was going to be a reluctant, but very, very effective witness, I think." "And the other victim is gonna be even more relieved." "That was a completed rape, too, I mean..." "She wanted to do it, she was just so, so scared," "I mean, literally, I held her hand to walk her into the grand jury," "I mean she couldn't..." "You know what I mean?" "Friel:" "Aw." "She was literally hugging the wall, you remember?" "I remember." "And she'd call me, I don't know, every week, saying," ""Can I dye my hair?" "Can I wear a hat?"" "Friel:" "Aw." ""Can I do it by affidavit?" "Can I wear sunglasses?" ""I don't wear contacts, but can I get contacts?" "Can I wear glasses?"" "I mean, she was that afraid of him seeing her." "That's really great." "So she's gonna be thrilled." "That's a great outcome, too." "It's a good thing." "Good job!" "Friel:" "Well good, so you get a little summer vacation now," "(laughing) At the end of the summer!" "That's right, that's right." "Now I don't know what I'm gonna do with myself for the next two weeks." "Go to the movies?" "I have some thoughts, Artie!" "I bet." "Sure." "I got a whole pile of things I could help you think about!" "You know what, though?" "You know what's funny?" "I don't know what's gonna happen with the world series." "This is gonna be disastrous, right?" "If it rains again?" "Jeter's the only one that has love all the time." "I love Jeter." "Everyone loves Jeter." "Because he's, he's the captain of the team." "Penabad:" "He's the quintessential Yankee." "He's not kissing himself in the mirror in sports magazines..." "Balbert:" "He's the best." "I love him." "How many times have you, like, gone by, like, when they're filming law  order and they're like, they have the whole street blocked off and they're like," ""You can't walk over here," and I'm like," ""No, I am a DA, and I need to get into the building!"" "(Laughs)" "That's happening." "Sorry." "We've seen them film around here, and they actually have ocme jackets." "Balbert:" "No, do they?" "I want a jacket." "You're like, "How come I don't get one?" "I deserve a jacket!"" "It's so glorified on TV..." "So, Sarah, as you know, you testified in the 2008 case, we have the defendant Kevin Rios, and in fact, I think I told you that he was convicted," "I think I e-mailed you right afterwards to tell you." "Yeah." "What I wanted to do, then, just was to go through the evidence from the '06 case..." "Okay." "And just go through some of the testing." "The narrative is that there were two perps." "Right." "Right." "From the initial testing that you did, what items did you actually test?" "On may 14, 2006, we had dried secretions from different areas on the victim's body, and oral swabs and smears, vaginal swabs and smears, and anal swabs and smears." "Balbert:" "Okay." "The oral swab also came up positive for semen." "Oral swab." "Phillips:" "When this was uploaded into CODIS, we ended up getting a letter from the division of criminal justice services of New York, saying that they searched the state database, and there was a match between the male profile we generated" "and a known sample in the database." "Okay, and that person was Kevin Rios?" "Correct." "Okay." "But in bs4, bs5, and bs6 there wasn't..." "Phillips:" "The sperm fractions." "All went back to male donor a?" "Yes, as a mixture." "So then obviously after this, there was no testing of the clothes, cause there would be really no reason to?" "Right, we didn't test the clothing." "Which, obviously, you know, you'll be cross-examined about." "Right." "That you didn't test the clothing." "Oh, that's a photo of the condom!" "Yes." "Oh yeah, I definitely don't have those." "With the profile that you obtained from all the evidence, from both male donor a and male donor b, what is the likelihood that you'd see it in someone else?" "So the combination of the DNA alleles from sample bs3 sperm fraction, you'd expect that to be found in approximately one in greater than one trillion people." "Which is how many planet earths?" "To break it down, our earth has a population of approximately 6.5 billion people, and you'd need approximately 153 planet earths, each with a population of 6.5 billion people, before you'd expect to see this profile again." "Okay." "And that's the sample that matches back to male donor a, which is Kevin Rios." "Okay. 153 planet earths, that's just..." "So, you know, I'll e-mail you or I'll call you, I'll let you know sort of what the status is in terms of scheduling." "Great." "Okay?" "You know who I saw the other day on the street?" "Who?" "Clive Owen." "Oh!" "Yeah, so I was like, "it's Clive Owen!" (Laughing)" "Balbert:" "I was born and raised here, so I've grown up here all my life." "Hence the thick New York accent, that I've worked all my life to get rid of." "Go for a whole donut!" "You're pregnant!" "You deserve it." "I'm eating healthier now that I am." "Ah, healthy shmealthy." "I'm like the only person who's gonna lose weight during pregnancy." "Penabad:" "I started out in private practice, and I just was, you know, strapped with loans." "Can I get a medium hot chocolate?" "And a chocolate glazed donut." "So I went to the private firm first, for two years, and paid down a lot of my loans and part of my wedding, and then was able to make the transition here." "'Cause ultimately, I wanted a job that I felt like made a difference every day." "And I think you have to sort of recognize that," "I mean, I don't think anybody comes into this job for the money, ever." "This is a tremendous skill that you learn, living in New York City, right?" "Yes." "You learn how to parallel park." "(Beeping)" "Balbert:" "So if they go with consent, obviously identity's not gonna be an issue, and neither will the DNA." "So it'll just be an issue of, do you believe the victim or do you not believe the victim." "Fairstein: 1986 was the first time that the medical examiner said to me in a major investigation, there's this new scientific technique, it's called DNA." "You ought to familiarize yourself with it," "I think it's going to be very helpful going forward." "Bashford:" "This is vaginal swabs and smears collected at the hospital..." "Mourges:" "These are dried secretions which would be possibly semen or saliva." "Bashford:" "Fingernail scrapings were collected..." "Mourges:" "They always take the victim's underpants..." "She was examined at 4:00 in the morning, so she has to sit in the emergency room, with that evidentiary material in her and on her for hours." "That's gotta be devastating." "Your first instinct is, of course, to immediately jump into a hot shower." "You want every single ounce of the whole situation you know, taken off of you." "The victim's body is a crime scene, and they collect as much evidence as they can because they're never gonna have that opportunity again." "This rape kit went on the shelf, and that's where it sat for the next nine and a half years." "Bashford:" "It was sealed, and nothing happened to it." "And that happened with 17,000 kits around the city, and the seals were never broken." "But then, in 2000, two things happened that were very big for New York City, and very big for the victims of these kind of crimes." "One is that our medical examiner's office, which does all of the DNA testing for the 5 boroughs, joined CODIS, the data bank system, so you now had profiles of known individuals that you could compare crime scene evidence to." "And our boss, Mr. Morgenthau, looked ahead and said," ""Gee, these kits are going out," ""we have a data bank system, we'll be getting profiles, they'll be matching," ""what are we going to do with them?"" "It didn't take a genius to understand that you had to assign people to go through all those old rape kits and see if you could match it up with the perpetrators." "Mourges:" "So, actually, he set up the cold case unit with the two of us, and we, at the same time, realized that we had statutes of limitation breathing down our neck." "Depending on one's reading of the law, we either had 5 years or 10 years to bring these cases to trial." "Morgenthau:" "If you didn't bring the case within that period of time, you couldn't prosecute." "Mourges:" "We were desperate to go through the cases and find those cases which were nearing the expiration of the statute of limitations, and do something with them." "And this was one of those cases, because we knew if we got a DNA profile, that we would solve the case." "This kit went to the lab for testing, but unfortunately it did not match any convicted offender in the database." "Bashford:" "So we had been exploring in this office the idea of, to stop the clock, put a time-out on the statute of limitations, indict the profile." "Mourges:" "We decided to do a John Doe indictment in this case." "Bashford: (Laughing) And we always have grand jurors asking, "Is that his real name?"" "You had the identification and DNA of the perpetrator, but you didn't know who it was, so you filed a John Doe indictment, so if that person was subsequently picked up, he could be prosecuted." "And we were the first office in the United States to get a John Doe indictment against somebody." "We didn't... we only knew his DNA, we didn't know anything else." "Corrections officer in Manhattan family court having sex with underage defendants is coming up for trial," "I'm getting ready for that one." "So you have a lot of big cases coming up?" "I've got a couple of heavy cases coming up for trial." "I know, everything good falls into place at the same time." "Same time!" "Always!" "(Laughs)" "Tacchi:" "We're going up to 58th Street, between 11th and 12th." "I think we're gonna do a walk-through of the crime scene, which is always a good idea before we go to trial." "Kind of get a sense of what we're looking at." "June 1st, 1995, I went to Manhattan's special victims squad and then I've been here for more than three and a half years, so 14-plus years, going on 15 years, sex crimes cases." "Nothing comes close to sexual assault cases, or child abuse cases." "There's hand-holding, there's maintaining contact, there's a lot more of a connection between medical staff and social workers, and the district attorney's office and the investigators, than you'll see in any other type of case." "And a lot of that is as a result of the nature of the crime, and the impact it has on the victims." "So they pulled in here, they parked their vehicle almost on a "T,"" "behind her." "Behind her?" "Yeah." "With the driver side facing outward?" "But they also stole her car after it happened." "So she was here with nothing but her cell phone." "Quiet neighborhood, I mean there's nothing here." "No." "Yeah, this looks like an office building." "Back of an office building, which would be closed." "Next to a mini-storage..." "It is about as quiet as you're gonna find." "Yep." "And probably not gonna get harassed by the police!" "Tacchi:" "Not here." "Penabad:" "Yeah." "Balbert:" "I always do this." "I always come to the crime scene." "Tacchi:" "I do also." "I remember one case in particular, I know we're standing in the rain." "And he said, on a case he said," ""When was the last time you were at the location?" I was asked." "Answering, I said, "Last night."" "(Laughing)" "Balbert:" "Tada!" "It's like, "Ah, surprise!"" "Penabad:" "I think we'll wind up bringing her back here closer to trial, yeah." "As close as possible to when she'd actually testify, and that will also help prepare her to deal with, you know, the reality that's coming when she has to testify." "Which is hard for any victim." "And she'll point out where everything took place for us, like where she spit up the semen, where she saw him throw the condom, so that we're better prepared for it when we're doing trial," "we know how to explain it to the jury." "And then you know what we'll do?" "We'll actually take photos with her." "To get the whole expanse of the parking lot..." "Yeah, and then to show to the jurors." "Tacchi:" "Right." "Sounds like a plan." "Friel:" "What the jury's looking for is just something to hang their hat on, some little piece of evidence that makes them more comfortable to take the word of somebody they otherwise believe on the stand." "And the big places we can get corroboration is the work that you do and the hours you're going to spend on taking care of a rape victim in the er." "Your victim is not done with being treated and helped by you when they leave the emergency room." "If you see the victim in the emergency room, and you treat them after they've been assaulted in some way, you are a fact witness." "And if you are a fact witness like that, you will testify to the facts of what you did, and what you saw." "You are also going to talk about natural lubrication." "The public, especially the whole male half of the public, believes that women are bone dry unless they are sexually excited." "And how could you possibly be penetrated and not be ripped to shreds when you were penetrated?" "I swear to God, they really believe this!" "And they do studies of the public that is my jury pool, as to what they expect for injury in a rape case, the stats are off the charts for how much they expect not just injury, but significant injury." "Doctor Jacques Moritz, who is a doctor here at Roosevelt St. Luke's," "I watched him testify in a trial once, and he's talking about, you know, this, and how the baby's head is this big and the man's penis is this big, and he looked at all the jurors and he went like this," ""Baby's head, man's penis, baby's head, man's penis."" "All up and down until he had all 12 people shaking their heads and nodding with him, and he had made his point." "Your role is to, obviously, treat the victim medically, for her medical sake, for her emotional sake." "From my point of view, it's also to collect evidence." "Okay, so let's start with the exam, and what you have to do back in the emergency room." "Do a full head-to-toe exam, regardless of where they say, because we've got a lot of cases where the victims don't even know they are injured." "A woman who had been raped in an elevator, old-fashioned housing project, with those little round windows in the elevator doors, it got smashed during the attack, there was glass on the floor." "She gets to the hospital, takes off her clothes to put on the gown, there's glass embedded in her buttocks and in her back." "Didn't feel it at all, little pieces of glass." "Please assure your patients that never, ever, in all the years we've had these kits and we've been doing this, has anyone ever been prosecuted 'cause their toxicology was positive for an illicit substance, okay?" "We don't care." "No one has ever, or will ever be prosecuted because there was cocaine in their blood or their urine." "Documentation, please watch your language carefully, okay?" "There are some words you should never use." "Please do not use the word "alleged," okay?" ""Alleged" is a legal word." "If I walk into the hospital and I say I have a stomach ache, you are not going to write in your medical records, she "alleges" she had stomach pains, right?" "There's no reason you're disbelieving me, why would I be at the hospital?" "So please don't write that about rape victims." "Don't write the word "claims."" ""Claims" is a loaded word in a courtroom." ""Hickey."" ""Hickey" is not a medical term, okay?" ""Hickey" connotes consensual lovemaking, and the defense will harp on that." "Balbert:" "So we have a lot of business records on Friday, the 911 operator that'll put in the sprint..." "Sprint phone records, um..." "And Martinez." "And then officer Martinez." "Okay." "Do you see him and her going on Monday, Tuesday?" "Monday, Wednesday?" "I think we can get Martinez, Murphy, McLaughlin, the 911, and the sprint phone records, I think, definitely on Friday." "They're quick." "Okay." "Yeah they're quick witnesses." "Anyway, so that's that." "All right." "See you in a bit." "Balbert:" "It's so warm out!" "Sculco:" "So I think some of those guys are good." "The witnesses?" "Oh, the jurors." "Yeah." "Oh the men are great!" "Men are good." "Men before women, always, in sex crimes cases." "Yeah." "Hey, Mike." "Hi, tom." "The men I just thought were terrific on the panel." "I thought all of them, except that one guy with the..." "The guy who looks like Alan Greenspan." "Yes!" "He looks just like Alan Greenspan." "...Three juries and we've never reached a verdict," "I was like, you're not on this jury, then, either." "Not a good idea." "I think she should be kicked off for cause, too." "So she couldn't say either way?" "No, she said she would favor the prosecution." "I didn't think for a second he was gonna plead guilty, I knew it was all noise." "It's ridiculous." "I knew it." "Hi, J.R.!" "Hi laz!" "(Laughs)" "Oh, wait, you have the juror stuff, Jen?" "Yeah." "Oh." "All right, this is who I think so far." "I mean, obviously depending on what answers they give." "Yeah." "Alright, number one, no." "I had a no on her, too." "I had an x on him, but I don't know why I had an x on him." "And then, depending on what we do with seven and eight." "Five, we're not gonna keep her, either." "Oh right, sorry." "Great." "By the way, I just inhaled my food, just as an aside." "This is going to sabotage the biggest loser thing that we have going right now," "I mean, could they give us any more pieces?" "Balbert:" "Hi, sergeant, how are you?" "This is Coleen balbert calling from the Manhattan DA's office." "So you got the notification for officer Martinez?" "Okay, so, he's 100% testifying on Friday." "(Laughing) 100%, yes 100%." "Oh yeah, we absolutely need him, so please put it through, please!" "Thank you so much, I really appreciate it." "Okay, thank you, bye." "He was so nice!" "He was like, "For a rape one?" "No problem."" "I'm like "Aw, thank you!"" "He had originally called me and said, like, Thursday he has to go to the range," "Friday's better, but Friday's my RDO, but I'm all set, I can come, no problem." "You can call him, I have his cell right now." "Um, let's see, officer McLaughlin." "Friel:" "Hey!" "Sculco:" "What's up?" "What's going on?" "How'd this morning go?" "Oh, look at this!" "I know, isn't it great?" "This is great!" "I'm like, this would have been so helpful when I was..." "It's just the inside, it's for demonstrative purposes, but I just think it's great." "Yeah, no, it's great, they got a great angle on it." "So what happened this morning?" "Did you start picking or..." "Yeah, no we did, I just got up to speak to them, you know, did the "Can you be fair and impartial with the victim as a prostitute," you know, and of course, the women were the most difficult," "like, what do you mean, she was engaging in illegal activity?" "It's like, that would be prostitution, yes." "And so, you know, they were sort of, you know, some of them were like, well how can we assess the credibility, you know, of this witness when she's engaging in illegal activity," "when we're saying that the defendant's engaging in illegal activity?" "I'm like, because he raped her at gunpoint, maybe?" "I mean, there is a little bit of a difference but, anyway..." "Sculco:" "She wanted to know, like, why the victim wasn't arrested, too..." "Right!" "She was sort of going into that whole thing like, "Well, is she in trouble?" ""Why is she not in trouble?" It was like, ridiculous." "Balbert:" "And I was like, you know what?" "You're going down for cause." "(Laughing)" "If somebody is a drug user, if somebody, you know, smokes marijuana, that's a crime." "That's what one of the jurors said." "I think that that's great they brought that up, 'cause that's perfect." "The juror did, and she was perfect, she's like, just because if you were smoking marijuana, and something happened to you in the middle of smoking marijuana doesn't mean you can't be the victim of a crime" "'cause it was illegal activity." "Right." "So she got it, you know, and, but I did that..." "That's good." "So she's staying." "She's staying, she's definitely staying." "Women are harder on other women." "They're just much harder." "And they say some of that has to do with, psychologically, with protection, with thinking I could never be a victim, you know, 'cause I would never have fallen for this, or done this," "or engaged in prostitution or, you know, walked home, you know, late at night, cut through a park, been drinking..." "Sculco:" "That's how they sounded, too." "Like, the way they were saying it sounded like, well, "No, no, no, no, no," you know." "Yeah." "Friel:" "Anything else I can do for you back here?" "Pray." "(Laughs)" "Friel:" "I don't need to pray." "Balbert:" "Reminder to self, cannot not drink coffee before trial begins, ever!" "Alexenko:" "I lived in Florida for a number of years, afterwards, I moved to Virginia, and again continued on with my life, filled in very few people on what had happened." "So you can imagine my surprise when I have a voicemail from the New York City DA's office." "So now we're talking nine years after the rape, I get this phone call." "And that's a real leap of faith to sell to a victim, you know, to call them up and say, "We were looking at your case from almost ten years ago," ""and here's the deal, we want you to come, we want you to revisit all this pain," ""we want you to tell your story to a grand jury..."" "I heard a lot of words, a lot of legal jargon," "John Doe, indictment, DNA, statute of limitations..." ""And I can't promise you that this is gonna catch the guy," ""but the one thing we can promise you is that if we don't do it," ""this case is going to disappear." ""And if we find him ten years and one day from today, we're out of luck."" "And she, um, was very brave, and she came to court, and she came to the grand jury." "Sculco:" "So Melissa texted me this morning." "Her water broke." "She's in the hospital." "Yay!" "She wanted to come watch today, too, and I was like," ""I think you should go to the hospital."" "She's basically come full term through this entire pregnancy with this trial." "Now we have everybody here, the jury's outside, they're all present." "There are just a couple of things I need to bring up before we start." "Balbert:" "As do I, judge." "Well, I get to go first." "(Laughing)" "Balbert:" "Okay, you stand there." "I like standing here." "You do what works for you, don't do what works for me." "All right, take a deep breath, don't worry about it, you're gonna be great." "Don't worry about it." "You know the facts..." "Judge:" "Okay, are we ready for the jury?" "Sculco:" "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen." "On may 13th of 2006, she came into Manhattan to work." "As a prostitute." "And at that convenience store in Manhattan, she first encountered that defendant." "Let me start by saying that there is no question that Mr. Rios was present on the day that this occurred." "He had consensual sex with this woman." "He takes out a gun, puts it on his lap." "This is no longer agreed-upon sex for money, and she is terrified." "And we are not denying that he had sex with her." "He drove his own vehicle there." "His face was fully visible." "Her clothes have been ripped off, her money has been taken, she has been shown two weapons, and now she is being simultaneously penetrated by that defendant and the man with the braids." "And she'll tell you that despite being allegedly held and raped at gunpoint, that she continued to live a life of prostitution." "Such a brutal rape did not stop her from continuing this lifestyle." "And he tells her exactly what he thinks of her." "He says, "You're nothing but a whore, no one cares about you," ""and if we killed you right now, no one would care."" "A prostitute who was engaging in illegal activity, with a rap sheet all of her own, called the police for help." "There was no vaginal tearing, there was no anal tearing, there was no bruising." "And as we said to you during voir dire, the lead detective on this case did not do a good job." "He had a DNA hit on this case linking to that defendant in 2007, and did nothing with it." "There are problems with the detective and there is DNA and there is an identification." "But we've expected that." "And you will hear that she viewed that line-up, and that two years later, without hesitation, she picked out that man." "This was not another customer, that was her rapist." "The defendant is not guilty of the crimes for which he has been accused." "Thank you." "Judge:" "All right, ladies and gentleman, we are going to take a brief recess to set up the evidentiary portion of the trial." "Keep an open mind, do not discuss the case amongst yourselves or anybody else, remember all my other admonitions please..." "It was really important to touch on every single crime and go through that all over again." "It was hard." "And that was the only thing that Melissa kind of went into, you know," ""He put his penis in my mouth."" "It was just pretty hard for me to say right then." "But it's..." "You know, those are the kinds of things they made me say, because that is what happened!" "So, you have to say what happened." "The facts that happened." "The jury came back, and it was very quick, as I recall, and charged his DNA with the crime, and, essentially, that stopped the clock on the statute of limitations." "We had a great day in August of 2007, in fact August 6th, 2007, which was exactly 14 years after the day that Natasha was raped and robbed." "We got a match from the DNA databank." "Finally, the owner of this John Doe profile came into the databank." "We now had a face to put to that DNA profile and that's the face Natasha saw 14 years earlier." "And we called Natasha and said, you know," ""I hope you're sitting down."" "There was a part of me that absolutely felt that it would be cathartic to go through the process of a trial, and there was a part of me that thought," ""There's just no way!" "I don't want to do this."" "(Phone ringing)" "She did as best as she could." "I think she was honest." "I think that's really all you can ask for of a witness, is just to be themselves, and to be honest, and to tell the truth." "And I think she did that, you know, with a sense of composure." "And, you know, I think it was obviously very difficult for her." "Yeah." "I think that came through." "I mean, I hope." "I hope that the jury could see that." "Yeah." "That's all you can hope for, is that they see what you see." "You know what I was thinking last night, too?" "As I was just thinking about, you know, like, things for arguments and stuff, if she's going to go with this whole, like, you know, she's afraid and she has to make up a story on why the van's stolen," "her whole testimony is that she had the semen in her mouth while she was still in the van." "You know, she had no idea that they were going to steal her van then." "Balbert:" "Right, so what would be the point of doing that?" "You didn't have to keep the semen in the mouth." "Yeah." "There's no reason." "Other than, she was raped." "Actually, no, you know what would've happened, she would have never had the semen in her mouth, because prostitute 101 is, essentially, you do it with a condom." "Yeah." "And so, she would have never had that in her mouth to begin with." "Exactly." "To begin with." "Oh, that's another good point!" "Because just from her questions of her, it seems like she is going to try that angle." ""Person wear condom."" "So we'll work on some stuff today." "I want to go through his statement, just in case he testifies," "I'm gonna do that today." "I am actually going through it with the times." "We're going to play the whole thing in its entirety, and then on cross-examination, if he testifies, I am going to cue it up to certain points." "You'll be like my Vanna White." "Oh, fabulous, okay!" "(Both laughing)" "I'll be your assistant!" "Melissa is home with the baby." "It's so funny because she was so obsessively texting and now she, like, fell off the map." "You know obviously, 'cause she has a newborn." "'Cause she's too busy!" "Alexenko:" "The trial at that time kept getting postponed." "So, just waiting, playing the waiting game, when is it going to be." "The night before the trial, I had friends with me, it was very emotional." "I made a choice to not have my mother at the testimony," "I knew that I was going to be asked questions that I probably didn't need her to know." "And it was difficult to sleep." "I was absolutely petrified." "There were moments when I thought," ""Forget it." "No." "I can't." ""I cannot do this." "I can't, I can't."" "And, my friends said to me, well," ""You know, you gotta do this."" "I had met Natasha early in the morning, and we went to the DA's office first, and then, all together, we walked over to the courtroom." "In order to prepare me for the trial, Melissa and I met, and we went over some of the questions that I would be asked." "But no one can prepare you for what that's like, it is just unreal." "So you're walking into the courthouse..." "The trial didn't start right away, there was a lot of, kind of shuffling and things that I didn't understand that were going on." "There's a lot of hurry up and wait, and you're in this horrible room with no magazines, and they're waiting, and they're waiting, and they're waiting." "What I do remember the most is Natasha coming out to testify." "At the trial, Natasha walked out of the witness waiting room, which is kind of behind the courtroom, and the court officer escorted her in, and he stood her in the witness box." "And, as she turned to face the court clerk, she saw, for the first time in 14 years, the defendant." "And I've never seen anything like this." "I saw Victor Rondon, and," "time just stopped." "Everybody else in the room vanished, it was just him and I." "As soon as she saw him, she just..." "You know..." "Her, she started hyperventilating." "She started to shake," "(gasps)" "And she started to (Gasps) Breathe like that..." "It was almost like the, you know, this was the physical embodiment of all of the fear, and all of the guilt, and all of the sadness." "The last time she had seen him, she was bent over a railing with him doing horrible things to her at gunpoint." "I don't want to be near this guy, it was like, instinctually wanting to just totally get as far away as possible." "And she just kind of pitched backwards, and there was a court officer who was able to catch her." "And, you know, we all rushed towards her." "I just wanted to run up to her and hug her, and comfort her." "And she kind of got taken out back into the waiting room, and I've never seen anything like that in almost 30 years of being a trial lawyer." "She was absolutely shaken, absolutely shaken." "We don't mean to be saying that it's such a traumatic experience that people shouldn't tell what happened in the grand jury, or tell what happened at trial, because I have never heard anybody afterwards say, "I wish I hadn't done it."" "They took a short recess for like 15 or 20 minutes, and when she came back into the courtroom, it was a completely different person and it was amazing to watch." "Somehow, through some miracle, and whatever power we gather in ourselves, just suddenly comes out when you need it, got up and testified." "In front of a jury of twelve people that you don't know, in front of lawyers, in front of, you know, the rapist." "And the trial is really, as far as I'm concerned, the moment when the victim takes all the power back, all the power that he wielded over her, all the shame, all the terror." "This was like my karmic duty to get up there, and keep this guy from ever doing this again to anyone else." "Now she holds all that power, she holds the power over him, and that is a transcendent moment, I think, for a witness in a trial." "She did it for anyone who's been raped before, anyone who's been a victim of a violent crime." "That's amazing." "That's incredible to me." "Judge:" "We have now heard the entire evidentiary portion of the trial." "There are still important parts of this trial that still have to take place." "So we are now going to recess until 2:15, when you will hear the summations of counsel, followed by my instructions on the law." "So keep an open mind, do not discuss the case amongst yourselves or anyone else, remember all of my other admonitions, enjoy your lunch, see you at 2:15." "Stephanie Davidson:" "Here, I'm gonna put Coleen on the phone." "Hello?" "Hi!" "I'm just gonna go sum up now, we're gonna do summations." "I don't know what the end result's gonna be." "As soon as I know, I will call you." "You know, I never want to think in terms of what could happen, 'cause I'm very superstitious about those things." "I think you did what you were supposed to do, which was tell the truth." "And I think that's all you can do." "Let me go run to court." "Why don't you talk to Stephanie for a little bit?" "Right, well actually there's gonna be some stuff that's gonna happen first, before they give the verdict." "So what's gonna happen is, she's gonna go to court and give her final argument." "Okay, you ready?" "Yeah." "Do I have everything?" "Yes." "Okay, there's nothing left over there." "I feel like, you know, how many times, at least three times I've been like," ""Where's my summation?"" "(Laughing)" "It was in the notepad!" "I was like, "Where's my summation?"" "Melissa, the last case she did, she wound up..." "Who did?" "Melissa." "Penabad?" "She had it on her home computer, and she, like, e-mailed it to herself, and she forgot to attach it and she got here..." "That's not good." "So she had to send her mom home, to like..." "Oh, could you imagine?" "Oh, that would not be good." "No, I could not imagine." "That's why I actually handwrite those out." "I remember my writing, so..." "Jen, you're gonna have your big moment..." "Sculco:" "I put the list here." "Judge:" "Do we need to do anything before the jury comes back?" "I'm just gonna cue this to..." "Balbert:" "This is gonna be your big moment, you can't mess this up." "Your big moment is "play."" "Judge:" "Welcome back, ladies and gentleman, we're about to hear the closing arguments with council." "As I mentioned, under our system of law, the defense goes first." "Summers:" "Good afternoon." "As we've maintained throughout the trial, what happened on may 13th, 2006, was consensual sex." "You heard her, and you saw her." "She was brutally honest, even about things that made her look bad." "This detective, I think we all can agree, didn't take this investigation seriously." "A year goes by, and he gets a DNA hit." "He has the name of Kevin Rios, he has his address, and he still doesn't do anything." "That's how seriously this detective took this case." "His opinion, his belief, his idea of what happened is completely irrelevant." "And in fact, he didn't even close the case because he didn't find her credible, he closed the case because he said all leads were exhausted, which was just sheer laziness." "And what is significant about having the semen in her mouth?" "She did that because she had been raped." "Summers:" "The fact is, we just don't know what happened." "But there's a lot of problems in her story." "There's a lot of inconsistencies in the statements of the police officers." "It all just doesn't add up." "As emotionally compelling as she may have been, the facts don't support it." "The burden lies entirely on the people." "However, when the defendant chooses to testify, you're supposed to assess his credibility as you would any other witness in this case." "And what he said to you on the stand was baloney." "It's like I told him, I don't, I never seen that female, she's not my cup of tea, it's like, I wasn't with the second individual, I was telling him," "from work I go home." "I don't hang out much." "Balbert:" "Does that seem like somebody who's confused?" "Or does that seem like somebody who's just not willing to tell the truth?" "And we're confident that you'll find that this case does not rise to the level of reasonable doubt, and that Mr. Rios is not guilty for the crimes of which he stands accused." "Thank you." "You heard her say some of the things that the defendant said to her." ""You're just a hooker." "We're doing this because we can."" "He thought she was nothing." "He thought she was garbage." "And I'm asking you to tell him that she's not garbage, that she's not nothing!" "That she's a human being, and what he did to her was criminal." "And it was rape." "Thank you." "Judge:" "All right, ladies and gentleman, we will take a 15-minute recess." "Clerk:" "Will the audience remain seated until the jury leaves." "Thank you." "We were charging Victor Rondon with more than one crime." "We have rape, we have sodomy, we have robbery, we have assault, we have the weapon." "And I felt pretty confident." "A little scared, but confident." "I was mentally preparing for what the defense attorney was going to ask me." "The defense attorney, who was a woman, and who really should have known better, on cross-examination, one of the very first questions she asked was whether or not Natasha was a virgin." "I just think it's the most inappropriate question." "It has really nothing to do with the rape." "There's a rape shield statute that's been in effect for a number of years, and it was a completely objectionable question." ""So, were you a virgin when this happened?"" "Um..." "Didn't answer it." "I just looked at her, looked at Melissa who objected, and, of course, sustained." "And the cross-examination was tilted towards the idea that the sex was pleasurable, because Natasha never screamed." "I think until you have a gun to your head," "I don't think you can really ask that sort of question." "And the fact that you didn't scream meant that this was not a forcible rape, this was actually something that you were enjoying." "I would have done just about anything to make sure the outcome wasn't going to be me with my brain bleeding out on the landing in my apartment building." "The ultimate proof that she made the right decision is she was there to testify in 2008." "Then, he got on the witness stand and he said," "(chuckling)" "He goes, "I recognized her the minute she walked into the courtroom."" "He said that I had met him on a subway, and that I had visited his place in Harlem, where I had consensual sex with him and a friend, whose DNA was somehow miraculously missing from the rape kit." "He couldn't claim that the DNA was wrong, because the last time that worked really well was o.J." "And, unless the jury's been living in the garage for the last 10 years, unless they haven't seen any episode of CSI, that claim doesn't work anymore." "So he had to go with a consent defense." "Bashford:" "Testimony started on March 17th, testimony ended on March 18th of 2008." "So it was now almost 15 years since it happened." "It was scary waiting to hear, waiting to hear, what would happen, what would happen." "If the jury says he's not guilty, I mean, I know it happened," "I'm gonna be afraid of this guy for the rest of my life." "The jury wasn't out long, and he was convicted of two counts of rape in the first degree, two counts of sodomy in the first degree, two counts of sexual abuse in the first degree..." "How could I possibly describe how I felt when I found out the verdict was guilty?" "Just a range of emotions. "It's over." ""Oh my God..." "He's..." "I'm safe." "I'm not going to be hurt."" "Everything." "I mean, all these feelings come rushing through." "Balbert:" "Seriously, I just want to go home tonight and watch, like, mindless TV." "Sculco:" "I know." "Like, all my reality TV." "See, if rock of love was on now... (Laughing) Rock of love!" "(Laughing) I might, then I might watch the season one DVDs." "Woman:" "I'm getting a little tired and sleepy." "Balbert:" "Yeah, me too." "Judge: ..." "From the jury a few minutes ago, that says, "We have reached a decision."" "Judge:" "Has the jury reached a verdict on all counts?" "Foreman:" "Yes we have, your honor." "Judge:" "I'll ask the clerk to take the verdict." "Clerk:" "Foreman, please rise." "In the case of the state of New York against Kevin Rios, as to count one, rape in the first degree." "Do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?" "Foreman:" "Guilty." "Clerk:" "As to count two, rape in the first degree." "Do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?" "Foreman:" "Guilty." "Clerk:" "As to count three, rape in the first degree." "Do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?" "Foreman:" "Guilty." "Clerk:" "As to count four, criminal sexual act in the first degree." "Do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?" "Foreman:" "Guilty." "Judge:" "Would any member like the jury polled?" "Summers:" "Please." "Judge:" "Juror number one, is that your verdict?" "Juror 1:" "Yes." "Judge:" "Juror number two, is that your verdict?" "Juror 2:" "Yes." "Judge:" "Juror number three, is that your verdict?" "Juror 3:" "Yes." "Judge:" "Juror number four, is that your verdict?" "Juror 4:" "Yes." "Judge:" "Juror number five, is that your verdict?" "Juror 5:" "Yes." "Judge:" "Juror number six, is that your verdict?" "Juror 6:" "Yes." "Judge:" "Juror number seven, is that your verdict?" "Juror 7:" "Yes." "Judge:" "Juror number eight, is that your verdict?" "Juror 8:" "Yes." "Judge:" "Juror number nine, is that your verdict?" "Soon as I get back to my desk I am going to call her." "Let her know, she is going to be thrilled." "She is going to be thrilled." "Guilty." "(Woman cheering)" "Yeah, good job!" "Excellent job!" "Give me a hug." "We did so good." "Team peace!" "Team peace!" "Guilty!" "Yay!" "On everything!" "You get a hug, too." "Thank you!" "You did great!" "All right guys, go call everybody." "Its gonna be great news for their weekend." "I've never, like, felt more just like that sense of like, just vindication for her." "Like, to accomplish that, really, is just unbelievable." "Guilty." "Guilty on everything." "Just calm down." "I know." "You did it!" "You did it." "You know, they believed you." "You really did a tremendous thing by reporting it, and by coming forward, and by being honest about everything, and by telling the truth, and I'm so happy that this is..." "That you got the justice in the end, I really am." "You should be." "You should be!" "Tears of joy are okay, there is nothing wrong with crying." "Ed?" "Coleen." "Guilty." "Everything." "Yay!" "It's Coleen." "Guilty!" "(Giggling) You heard that?" "Everyone in this office is going to start coming in here and be like," ""Oh my God, I heard!" "Oh, my God!"" "I was going to say, do you want to grab a drink?" "Yeah!" "Get Artie!" "Tell Artie to come." "Hi, Sarah, it's Coleen balbert." "I just wanted to let you know that the defendant was convicted of all eight counts, so, thank you again so much." "All right, I'm sure I'll talk to you over the weekend." "Have a good weekend." "Have a nice time tonight." "Go celebrate." "I am, I'm going to have a drink with Sculco, probably." "Oh, good!" "Okay, see you later." "Okay, bye!" "He was crying in court, so..." "Yeah." "I really didn't feel bad for him." "Yeah." "That's exactly right, I've seen two victims crying in my office because of what he did to them, so I just, you know, I don't have sympathy." "Two times!" "Two-time convicted rapist." "Is that unbelievable?" "Melissa told me that I had a choice where I could give a victim impact statement." "You know, I went online, and this is a right that, actually, people fought for, they actually fought for the right to give an impact statement." "When he was sentenced, Natasha came to the, uh..." "Made a victim impact statement that was very moving." "Her mom was in the courtroom..." "And I just felt so powerful for the first time in a long time." "And Victor lost that day, and victims won." "She had a chance to look at the defendant, and tell him exactly what he had done to her, exactly how she had suffered." "I wanted the judge to know that" "Victor Rondon's crimes were not just against me." "I explained that they were against my family, they were against my friends, they were against the people that live in my building, all the people that have been affected by this." "This guy did bad things to a lot of people, and he needed to go away." "He cannot do this again to anyone else." "But the number that we like the best is, his maximum release date is the year 2057." "So I think everyone, from the cops, to the medical examiners, to the prosecutors, really helped restore her faith again in the city, and it was almost like, this was the city's way of making this horrible experience back up to her." "Balbert:" "Victims often don't report crimes as she did in this case, but it's because of her courage, her strength, and her determination, that she is an inspiration to all victims who are afraid..." "Who are afraid to report rape because of their status in society." "And, in fact, her words were," ""To me, I'm so happy that they saw me as a person, and not as a prostitute."" "The people are asking that the court sentence the defendant to 25 years consecutive to the 15-to-life sentence that he has already received, to ensure that this individual can never harm anyone else in our society ever again." "Thank you." "I believe Mr. Rios would like to say something on his own behalf." "Judge:" "Mr. Rios, would you like to say anything today?" "Yes." "I have a loving and supporting family that only wants to see me succeed and prosper in life and my goals." "(Crying) I am sorry for the victim, and the crime that was committed on her." "(Sniffling)" "All I've got is a future ahead of me." "Please don't let me spend the rest of my life in prison." "(Sobs)" "Thank you for your time." "Judge:" "I find myself unmoved by Mr. Rios' tears." "This was a crime of extreme violence, and cowardice," "committed against a defenseless victim." "His testimony at trail was absurd." "And to the extent that it characterized the acts as consensual, it was offensive as well." "I am sentencing the defendant to 12 years in the state prison, for each of the class b felonies for which he was convicted, and they will run consecutive to the sentence that I have previously imposed, of 15 years to life, for the other case." "(Gavel bangs)" "Balbert:" "I got a little teary, I couldn't believe I had to catch myself for a second." "Well, it's hard, you're still a human being, you're always a human being." "I know." "Well, I think about her, and I just think about how this has affected her life, what she thought others would think about her, you know, that she was not a legitimate victim." "Balbert: (Quietly) I'm not happy with 12 years, but what are you going to do?" "Right." "Balbert:" "Kim, I'll talk to you!" "We have to make plans to, like, go for dinner, or drinks, or whatever." "And judge, you're invited as well, now that we're done." "(Laughs)" "First, we'd like to congratulate our new director of the long island maritime museum, and all of those involved with the museum are very excited to welcome Natasha Alexenko aboard." "Alexenko:" "Thank you very much." "I feel extremely privileged to be in a room with such wonderful community leaders, who allow us to have places like the long island maritime museum in existence." "So, thank you all." "She's strong, she fought, and justice, that's the important thing." "Yeah." "I feel like God was with us, and helping us too." "Alexenko:" "You have a choice in life of how to take things." "Believe me, I had moments of feeling sorry for myself, and I guess you can do that, choose to go that route, or you can choose to not be the victim." "And, I guess if you gain strength from it, and if you come out of it with something more, then you won." "Then you were never the victim!" "You were kind of never the victim." "This is actually the first time I've been back in this building in 17 years." "This was actually the hallway, so we started off in the vestibule right there, and it was late at night, and he put the gun to my head, walked me to the elevator, which is here." "I don't necessarily hope to find anything, it's just something that," "I suppose it's like, I'm ready, I'm done with it, and this is just kind of a way of proving to myself that we are all good." "This is the 7th floor, so this is the last floor where there's actually people living in." "And these were the stairs he led me up to the rooftop landing." "Pretty crazy." "They dusted my fingerprints on this rail here." "When I've imagined this place in my head, it was much worse." "It's just such a benign, sort of bicycle storage area, and it certainly doesn't feel menacing or threatening." "It's just, in the daylight, all the shadows are gone." "Seventeen years later, I'm back, and it's okay." "It is absolutely okay." "I think that if I could step back in time to Natasha," "I would just tell her to hang in there, and to cry already!" "(Giggles)" "This is just not the definition of who you are." "This is a part of who you are, this is something that happened to you, but it's not who you are." "And there's nothing to be ashamed about, there's really nothing." "It's not your fault." "It's not your fault." "And everything is going to be okay." "== sync, corrected by elderman =="