Woman sobs as she describes alleged rape

A 29-year-old fabric designer repeatedly broke down on the witness stand in State Supreme Court in Manhattan yesterday, describing how she was sexually assaulted by two New York City cops who helped her into her apartment after she passed out drunk in a taxi.

"I was scared and I didn't know what to do," said the alleged victim, testifying through sobs in a case NYPD brass has called a betrayal of cops' basic duty to protect the public. " . . . When something bad happens you think you're supposed to call the police. When this happened I didn't know what I was supposed to do."

The alleged victim, whose name is being withheld by Newsday, testified on the seventh day of the trial of suspended NYPD officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata. Both men are charged with rape -- Moreno for allegedly having sex, Mata for allegedly standing guard -- and falsifying reports.

Surveillance videos have shown the officers returning to the woman's East Village apartment three times in the early morning hours of Dec. 7, 2008, after telling dispatch that they were elsewhere. But the accuser's credibility and memory are critical, because she had been drinking for a day and a night to celebrate a promotion at The Gap Inc. and imminent move to San Francisco.

Moreno's lawyer says his client did not have sex with the 29-year-old. Mata's lawyer says his client did nothing criminal.

The lawyers also say the officers returned to the victim's apartment repeatedly to check on her well-being and give her alcohol counseling.

In court, the fabric designer appeared composed at the start as she described the drinking and testified that by the time she woke up vomiting in a cab outside her apartment, she was continually blacking out and had only flashes of memory.

She remembered being on the stairs to her apartment with the cops, then vomiting on her bathroom floor while one urged her to drink water, and then -- after another blackout -- lying facedown on her bed while someone rolled her tights down.

She passed out again, she testified, and then awakened to a man having intercourse with her as she lay facedown.

She was too drunk to scream or resist, she testified: "I was so intoxicated, I was dead weight. I couldn't move or do or say anything."

In the morning, she said, she awoke naked except for her bra. She took a shower, and broke down again as she tried to explain why.

"I was in shock," she testified. "I felt so dirty I wanted to take a shower. I sat in the shower crying. I tried to take my skin off." Later tests did not detect any semen.The alleged victim also testified about a conversation she had with Moreno several days later, after investigators equipped her with a wire. In the conversation, he repeatedly denied that anything happened, but at one point assured her that he had worn a condom and told her that things got "crazy."