By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A friend of the woman claiming she was raped by a pair of police officers after a drunken night out testified Friday she saw irregularities at her friend's apartment the morning after the alleged incident took place.
Megan O'Leary, a one-time college roommate of the alleged victim who lived on the floor above her in their East 13th Street building, testified in Manhattan Supreme Court that she saw the blinds drawn at the woman's apartment the day after the two had been out drinking with friends at a Brooklyn bar.
The alleged victim "always" kept the blinds covering her kitchen window open, so she could see into the apartments of other friends who lived in the building, O'Leary stated.
"The blinds in the kitchen were down, which was very unusual," the witness testified, noting she could normally see into the alleged victim's kitchen window from another window located in the building's main stairwell.
"They were always open so we could see each other in passing," she added.
Officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata are accused of raping the woman after escorting her back to her apartment in the early morning of Dec. 7, 2008, after a cabdriver called to report she was too drunk to exit the cab on her own.
Moreno allegedly raped the woman while Mata stood guard, and video surveillance shows the two officers returning to the apartment multiple times over a four-hour period when the incident purportedly took place.
O'Leary, who went to Brooklyn that night with the alleged victim and other friends who lived in the building, said the woman spent most of the night on the dance floor and didn't appear overly intoxicated at any point during the night.
The witness testified she lost track of the woman at some point and ended up splitting a cab back to the East Village with others, deciding not to check in on her friend after arriving home because she noticed her lights were off.
O'Leary said she was awoken the next morning by "frantic knocking" on her neighbor's door, and went in to find the alleged victim "very upset."
"I can't believe this happened," she testified her friend said the next morning, noting the woman acknowledged she was raped. "I can't believe they did that."
The witness said that after going to the alleged victim's apartment the next day, she also noticed the living room curtains were closed, which she said was also unusual.
O'Leary added that her friend's emotional state was uncharacteristically off following the incident, noting she had only seen her cry a "handful of times."
"You almost never saw [her] cry," she said. "I've never seen her that upset."
