By Gabriela Resto-Montero
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
EAST VILLAGE — A recorded confession from an NYPD officer allegedly admitting to raping a woman in her own apartment after he and his partner escorted her home will play a large role in the criminal case against the policemen, the New York Post reported.
The unidentified woman wore a wire as part of an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney's office and confronted Patrolman Kenneth Moreno, 43, outside of the Ninth Precinct days after the alleged December 2008 assault, the Post reported.
In the recording obtained by the Post, Moreno allegedly apologizes to the woman for taking advantage of her after she passed out from a night of heavy drinking.
"It wasn't done intentionally," Moreno is heard saying on the tape after the victim told him she remembered him forcing himself on her, the paper reported.
"I didn't mean to hurt you. I just got caught up. I'm sorry," he said.
At the end of the recording, Moreno reportedly told the woman that, if she stopped drinking, he would be her boyfriend.
Moreno and his partner, Franklin Mata, 28, escorted the woman home in December of 2008 after a cab driver called police to report that his passenger was incoherent and vomiting in his cab.
The patrolmen took the woman to her East 13th Street apartment and were recorded leaving by a bar camera minutes after.
Moreno and Mata returned to the woman's apartment shortly before 2 a.m. and were let in by a building resident after telling him that they were investigating a noise complaint, the paper reported.
They left her apartment again to handle a traffic accident and came back for a third time around 3 a.m., letting themselves in with a key they had allegedly swiped from the woman's apartment, the Post reported.
Cameras from nearby bars captured the men's repeated visits to the victim's apartment and, in the last case, show them trying to conceal their faces from a camera, the Post reported.
Inside the woman's home, Moreno allegedly undressed her as she struggled to stay awake, put on a condom, and raped her. Mata is accused of standing guard while the alleged assault took place, according to reports.
The woman, who had recently moved to the city has since returned to her home in San Francisco, the Post reported.
Both officers will go on trial next week for charges of rape, burglary and official misconduct and face up to 25 years in prison.
