Cop's lawyer attacks rape accuser

A second defense lawyer in the trial of two NYPD officers charged in the 2008 rape of a drunken woman launched a barrage of attacks against the accuser, saying in closing arguments Monday that she was either confused or lying for money.

Edward Mandery, the lawyer for Officer Franklin Mata, several times brought up in sarcastic asides a $57-million lawsuit the woman, a 29-year-old Gap designer, has filed against the city, suggesting that she had dollar signs in her eyes when she accused Mata and his partner, Officer Kenneth Moreno.

"I don't know if [the accuser] thinks she was raped, believes she was raped, or maybe by bringing these allegations she thinks she'll never have to work another day in her life," Mandery said. "Fifty-seven million is a heck of a lot of money."

Mandery also pointed to a discrepancy between trial testimony that the woman was completely intoxicated and vomiting from a day and night of drinking and a hospital record from the day after the alleged rape saying she had only a glass of Champagne and a glass of vodka.

"It may be when she went to the hospital she didn't know whether she was going to go with the 'I only had two drinks and they held me against my will' version, or 'I was helpless,' " Mandery said.

The two officers are charged with raping the woman on Dec. 7, 2008, during three post-midnight visits to her East Village apartment after escorting her inside from a taxi. Moreno says he was counseling her about alcoholism, and Mata says he was just following his older partner's lead.

The officers are charged under a provision of the rape statute that makes it a crime to have intercourse with someone who is physically helpless and unable to consent. The woman says she was blacking out and passing out, but remembers at least one act of intercourse.

Mandery's summation was the latest in a series of defense assaults on the woman's credibility and reputation, in addition to arguments that she simply didn't remember what happened.

Moreno testified that she told him she had a drinking problem and tried to offer herself to him sexually, but he refused. His lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, in a summation last week that resembled Mandery's, peppered his closing with references to the $57-million lawsuit. Mandery told jurors that there was evidence that the accuser and many of her friends didn't tell the truth about the extent of her alcoholism.

The woman and her friends testified that she was an average drinker for a person of her age, and had never suffered an alcoholic episode before like the one in 2008.

Prosecutors will begin their closing arguments Tuesday.