By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — The police officers accused of raping a drunk woman they were charged with helping into her apartment called 911 dispatchers 10 minutes after arriving at the scene to report they had finished the job — despite surveillance footage allegedly showing the officers returning to her apartment three more times that night.
Eddie Rodriguez, a former 911 dispatcher who now works in the NYPD's tapes and records department, testified in Manhattan Supreme Court Friday that officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata called 911 dispatchers several times the night of the alleged attack.
The first call came from the officers at 1:10 a.m. on Dec. 7, 2008, to report they had arrived on the scene at East 13th Street within three minutes of being summoned to help a drunk woman get out of a taxicab and into her apartment.
The officers called dispatchers back at 1:20 a.m., saying they were done with the job, Rodriguez said.
The timing of their 1:20 a.m. call matches the surveillance footage from a camera outside the bar Heather’s on East 13th Street, which shows them leaving at approximately the same time.
However, surveillance footage shows the pair entered and exited the alleged victim’s apartment three more times after reporting that the job was closed, leaving the final time at 5:07 a.m., prosecutors said.
Heather Millstone, who owns Heather's bar between Avenues A and B adjacent to the alleged victim’s apartment, testified that she recognized the woman in the video being escorted into the building with Mata and Moreno as a tenant of that building.
The officers are allegedly seen in the recording leaving the building seven minutes later, and then returning at about 2 a.m. before departing again about 2:17 a.m.
The next trip allegedly took place at 3 a.m., during which time the officers didn't reappear until 33 minutes later, according to the video.
The officers are allegedly seen coming back a final time at 4:27 a.m. and staying for 40 minutes before departing.
Prosecutors say the woman was taken advantage of by Moreno, 43, during one of those trips while Mata, 28, stood guard.
Millstone testified that she watched the tape after three women came to her bar the following afternoon asking if anything unusual had happened there the night before. She added she’s since seen the footage "several dozen" times, but acknowledged during cross-examination that she only viewed the officers entering and exiting the address the fourth time in the last few weeks.
The alleged victim, a 27-year-old designer for the Gap Inc., has been described in a confusing array of states of intoxication, from "stumbling" drunk to slightly buzzed. The video appears to show her walking into the building without the assistance of the officers.
The discrepancy over her physical state is a battleground for the prosecutors and the defense, who are at odds over whether she was too intoxicated to reliably remember the events of the night, or whether she was sober enough to give consent for any possible physical contact with the officers.
