Rape victim's mother testifies at trial
John Kluge, 23, of Holbrook, is charged with raping a woman in 2009 in her Holtsville garage. (May 19, 2010) Credit: James Carbone
A Farmingville woman had never heard her daughter sound the way she did in a 6:45 a.m. phone call almost two years ago -- sobbing, gulping for air, and saying that she had just been raped, the mother testified Thursday in the trial of the man charged with the attack.
"She was hysterical, incomprehensible at first," said the mother, whom Newsday is not naming to protect the daughter's identity. "No parent should hear her daughter like that."
The mother raced to her daughter's home in nearby Holtsville. "I went through every red light and stop sign there was," she said during questioning by Assistant District Attorney Carl Borelli in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead.
Her daughter was terrified her attacker was still outside, so she threw her body against the door as soon as it was shut, her mother said.
"I fell to my knees and took my daughter in my arms," she said, her voice cracking. At least one juror stifled tears.
John Kluge, 25, of Holbrook, is charged with attacking the daughter, then 33, in her garage as she left to go to work on Oct. 26, 2009. Prosecutors have called him a "sexual predator," although he is on trial for a single attack in this case.
After an ambulance arrived, the woman said she helped her daughter into some clean underwear and sweatpants and walked her to the ambulance. She stayed with her at Stony Brook University Medical Center for more than seven hours while she endured a meticulous exam to collect evidence.
By the time it was done, the victim's husband, who had been visiting family in Florida, had returned.
During cross-examination by defense attorney Gregory Grizopoulos of Westbury, the woman said she had only a brief conversation with her daughter when Kluge was arrested in May 2010.
"She doesn't discuss anything [about the rape] with us," she said. "She keeps everything in."
Since the attack, the woman said, her daughter has moved out of the house and no longer lives with her husband.
Police officers Thursday testified about the woman's distraught condition and other observations. The first officer, David Evans, said he could see the woman's dark pants, underwear and other evidence of the rape on the garage floor.
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
