By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A neighbor of a woman allegedly raped by two police officers testified Tuesday that the cops told him they needed to get into her East Village apartment building that night to hunt a "prowler."
Officers Kenneth Moreno, 43, and Franklin Mata, 28, had escorted the woman to her fifth-floor walk-up apartment on East 13th Street more than an hour before they returned for the second time at 2 a.m. on Dec. 7, 2008. That's when they encountered David Mazzeo, a 30-year tenant, as he returned home.
"I made eye contact with one of the officers then turned and went into the building," said Mazzeo, 55.
Moreno and Mata were hanging around the front of the building, Mazzeo testified, but as he reached for his keys, he said he felt a "presence" behind him.
"I asked them the what was going on," Mazzeo told the court. "They said, 'Oh, we heard there was a prowler around and we just want to check out the building.'"
They then followed him into the building and began poking around the first-floor courtyard area behind the building where the garbage and recycling bins are kept, Mazzeo said.
Surveillance video shows the officers returning to the building two more times throughout the night. Prosecutors said that after escorting the drunk woman home after an evening of partying, the officers raped her. Moreno is accused of raping the then 27-year-old woman while Mata stood guard during one of those trips.
The officers allegedly placed a phony 911 call the night of the alleged rape reporting a homeless man in a different building's vestibule on the same block. Prosecutors suggest they made the call to buy themselves time for another trip to the woman's apartment.
Mazzeo testified Tuesday that he routinely looks around his block for signs of trouble and did not notice a sleeping vagrant on his street.
"At the time you were walking down the street toward your building did you see any apparently homeless men in the area at that point?" Assistant District Attorney Randolph Clarke asked Mazzeo. The witness said he did not.
The alleged victim, who left New York several years ago, is expected to take the witness stand this week.
Moreno and Mata are each charged with rape, official misconduct, burglary and other offenses.
Prior to Mazzeo's testimony Tuesday, defense attorneys wrapped up cross-examination of a 911 dispatcher, Eddie Rodriguez, who testified that the officers had given him false information about their movements throughout that evening.
"You would think these officers were AWOL for lack of a better word," Edward Mandery, Mata's attorney, told reporters, saying that had not been the case at all. Mandery said a dispatch report showed they responded to every radio call throughout the night within 10 seconds.
The defense has also said the woman was too drunk to recall what happened that night and said she admitted to being blacked out for portions of the evening.
They claim the officers returned to her apartment, as indisputably seen on the footage, to check on her because they knew she was in poor condition and had been sick from drinking.
Testimony will resume Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
