Butch noticed that Rachman suddenly sat forward, her eyes narrowed and focused on Kipman, who didn't bother to look her way. Their mutual dislike was no secret.
Kipman adjusted his half-moon reading glasses on the end of his long nose, then looked up over the top of them at Karp. "I'll begin with a brief rundown of the case, which, as Gilbert has so colorfully quoted from the media, involves two now-former basketball players from Columbia University. As you know, one night last February a young man named Khalif Mohammed had consensual sex with the complainant, Rose Montgomery, in her bedroom during a party at an off-campus apartment she shared with two other women. Neither side disputed this during the trial, nor the fact that the young woman was intoxicated.
"The gist of our case was that after sexual intercourse, Mohammed left the room, which was dark, and then his friend and teammate, Rashad Salaam, entered and, pretending to be Mohammed, had nonconsensual sex with her. The complainant swore in both her statements to the police and on the witness stand that she did not even know Salaam, with the inference that she would not have had sex with a stranger.
"At trial, the defense argued that the young woman had sponsored a party at the apartment to which members of the basketball team had been invited. Evidence was presented that the complainant passed around a bowl full of condoms 'just in case'-"
From her end of the table, Rachman snorted. "Like that's some sort of crime." She stopped when Butch looked at her sharply and dropped her head and sat glaring at the tabletop.
"During pretrial motions, the defense tried to introduce evidence from the defendants that the complainant not only knew Salaam but had consensual sex with him several days prior to the incident in question," Kipman said. "However, we argued that there was no corroborating evidence of such a relationship, and we were able to prevent that information from being introduced at trial-"
Again Rachman interjected. "It didn't matter. Previous sexual history is not relevant under our shield laws," she said before again falling into a sulky silence due to another stern look from Karp.
"Apparently, the New York Court of Appeals disagrees with that contention, especially when there was corroborating testimony that not only were the defendants telling the truth, but that the complainant was using the allegations to get back at Salaam, who apparently had rejected her after their first sexual liaison," Harry said dryly. "Most damning, according to the justices, was that we did not hand over this corroborating evidence to the defense so that they could at least bring it to the judge at a motion hearing and have the judge rule on its admissibility. This evidence consisted of statements given to the police by the complainant's roommates that Salaam had spent the night in the complainant's bedroom several days prior to the incident."
Rachman made a sighing noise, but Kipman ignored her and instead read from a transcript of one of the roommate's interviews with a detective. "She told me that she was angry with Rashad because she felt he'd just used her for sex. He wouldn't return her calls. She said that if she ever got the chance to get even, she'd 'cut his balls off.'"
Kipman looked pointedly at Karp. "However, for some reason, this interview was never disclosed to the defense. In fact, it was 'lost' until a private investigator working for the appellate lawyer located the roommates and conducted his own interview. In the meantime, Salaam and Mohammed had been convicted of sexual assault and conspiracy to commit sexual assault, respectively, and sentenced to prison."
Kipman closed his file and looked around the table. "Upon review, the court of appeals held that the roommates' interviews were relevant in that they could have been brought to the witness stand to impeach the complainant, who testified at the trial and apparently lied under oath."
Rachman slapped the table with her hand and half rose from her seat. "It's bullshit," she said, "and just like a bunch of old men, which describes our court of appeals, to ignore twenty years of precedent that establishes under the shield laws that the previous sexual history of the victim is not relevant and cannot be brought up at trial."
Harry remained seated but his voice grew more heated. "The court of appeals, the highest appellate court in New York State," Kipman stated, glancing over at Rachman, "has ruled more than once that shield laws were not intended to protect someone who perjured herself on the witness stand when asked a direct question, such as 'Did you know Rashad Salaam prior to the night of the alleged assault?' The complainant told the jury that she'd never met him before that evening and, if I remember from her testimony, that she would never have consented to sex with a stranger."
"So what?" Rachman spat back. "How would you like to sit in front of a jury, not to mention half of the media in Manhattan, and let a defense attorney make you out to be a whore? Of course, only a woman is considered 'loose' and therefore not deserving of protection under the law if she has sex with more than one partner; a guy does it and he just gets to put another notch on the bedpost. The judge should not even have allowed the question of whether she had met Rashad before that night. The only relevant issue is whether a man entered the victim's bedroom under pretense of being someone else and while she was very intoxicated, and without so much as a 'May I?' proceeded to have sex with her. In fact, she did not discover that she'd been duped until Mohammed reentered the room and turned on the lights. It was just a big game to them."
"She lied on the witness stand," Kipman countered. "If she didn't tell the truth when asked that question about even knowing Rashad, what makes you believe that she was telling the truth about whether the sex was consensual? Why would you simply dismiss the statements of the two roommates, who in separate interviews stated that she'd told them that she was going to get back at him because he didn't want to be her boyfriend?"
"Typical male response!" Rachman shouted. "The woman's a whore so she doesn't deserve our protection." She turned to Karp. "I plan to refile the charges and this time put those two rapists in prison where they belong for ten to fifteen."
Kipman also looked at Karp. "I don't believe that best serves the interests of justice in this case. 'Full disclosure' has long been the policy of this office, even when doing so may make our job harder. We should have turned the police interviews over to the defense, and then argued their relevance in front of the trial judge at a hearing. But this was not done and instead, Ms. Rachman took it upon herself to rule on its relevance and then hide the existence of these interviews. In the meantime, the lives of these two young men have been irrevocably damaged-they were expelled from the university, even before the trial and without a hearing, lost their basketball scholarships, and I doubt will find any other takers out there, even if we don't pursue another trial…"
"Poor babies," Rachman sneered. "They won't get paid to play a game while the victim-"
"Complainant; she's not a victim if the charges haven't been proved," Kipman interjected.
"…the victim," Rachman continued, "has to defend herself from being called a whore by the people who are supposed to protect her."
"She's certainly a liar," Kipman retorted. "So if one follows the other…"
Rachman turned almost purple with rage. "See! See!" she shouted. "This office is a reflection of the same old Neanderthal thinking-"
"As I was saying," Kipman said, "lives have been ruined here on what may have been nothing more than a jilted woman's revenge. The coach of the team was placed on administrative leave, essentially labeled a pimp by the press because he was somehow supposed to monitor what his players were doing off-campus, and then, when the shit hit the fan, defended these two young men by telling the press that he believed them and not the complainant."