Kipman stopped and returned Rachman's stare until she looked down at her clenched fists. "It would have been proper to argue that the complainant's sexual history was not relevant in this case and to have invoked the shield laws in front of a judge. However, we did not do that, nor did we discuss it in this meeting. We simply took it upon ourselves to hide a police report containing information that we did not like."
Rachman started to speak but Kipman raised his voice. "And yet that is not the most egregious of our errors. That would be that we knew the complainant was lying on the witness stand, and yet we allowed it-in fact, we encouraged it in our line of questioning-which is a serious breach of the law and accepted attorney conduct. It is therefore my recommendation that we concede error and drop the charges. Let's face it, we'll be lucky if we're not sued, and if the New York Bar Association doesn't censure the attorney involved."
Rachman jumped to her feet and shouted, "Since when do we let fear of a lawsuit dictate what crimes we prosecute?"
"You weren't listening," Kipman replied. "I am not making my recommendation because I'm worried about being sued. I'm recommending that we concede error because it was just plain wrong to allow a witness to get on the stand and lie. And it was simply dumb not to hand over that material to the defense."
"You're the one who's not listening," Rachman countered. "All that matters is whether the victim gave her consent to have sex with him that night."
"That is indeed the pertinent question," Kipman agreed. "However, as I said, this is a he said/she said case. There are no other witnesses, except the other defendant who claims that the sex was consensual. You might recall that he was prevented from testifying that his codefendant knew the victim and had previously had sex with her. So if there is a question whether a crime was even committed based on anything other than the complainant's word-which by the way is why it is more appropriate to use complainant rather than victim-is it relevant that she would lie to the police and under oath?
Rachman sneered. "Just like a man. I guess maybe you need to actually try a few thousand of these cases yourself to know when the victim is telling the truth and when she's not. There are a lot of reasons that a woman wouldn't want to delve into her sexual history in front of a judge and jury, starting with the fact that if a man has sex with multiple partners over the course of a week, he's Casanova, but if a woman does, she's a slut. Who wants to admit that in front of a room full of strangers, especially after going through the most frightening, humiliating, and degrading experience a woman can have?"
"Then you should have turned it over to the defense and argued it in a closed motions hearing," Kipman retorted. "If the judge had agreed with you that it was not relevant, then the defense attorney would not have been allowed to question the complainant about it on the witness stand and there would have been no reason for her to perjure herself. But to simply try to sweep it under the rug and hope nobody would notice is woefully bad judgment."
"Are you questioning my competence as a lawyer?" Rachman demanded. "You wouldn't do this if I was a man."
"Bullshit!" Kipman shouted back. "This has nothing to do with your gender and you know it. Nor does it reflect on your abilities as a prosecutor. However, it is my opinion that in this particular case, you made a mistake…a bad one."
Rachman started to say something, but Karp had had enough. "I think this conversation has reached an end," he said. "I concur with Harry's judgment in this matter. We will concede error and drop the charges-"
"NO!" Rachman screamed. "I cannot allow this…this…this travesty to happen. Those two spoiled athletes took advantage of an intoxicated young woman who did not give her consent. We can't let them off."
The room was shocked into silence as Rachman finished raving and stood with her knuckles pressed into the tabletop and sobbing. "I won't-" she started to say but was brought up short by Karp.
"Ms. Rachman, that's enough. You will remove yourself from this room and return to your office, where I expect you to pull yourself together. We'll talk about this later this afternoon."
Rachman stifled her sobs and narrowed her eyes as she looked from Karp to Kipman. "I see," she said, scooping her files together. "I see."
"If those are files from other cases, please leave them and have your assistant deliver your report," Karp said.
Rachman froze and appeared ready to say something really scathing, then thought better of it. She dropped the files on the table with a thud, then walked around the table, her eyes straight ahead, and out the door. The door slammed shut and a voice at the other end of the table exclaimed, "Holy shit. The Ice Princess had a meltdown!"
There were a few chuckles around the table and a full-fledged guffaw from Guma, but Karp wasn't in the mood. "Now, if we can proceed with the matters at hand, I know we all have a busy day ahead of us. Anything else?"
"Well, the morning's newspaper," Murrow said.
Karp winced. "I'm sure you are all aware that Murrow is referring to the appearance of two more heads…without their bodies…in East Harlem," he said. "What can you tell us, Clay?"
"I'm getting updates from the PD but they don't have much more than the newspapers reported," Detective Clay Fulton responded. "Apparently some nutcase with a thing for cutting the heads off Middle Eastern men is running amok in the city. This time the heads were dropped off at the front door of a small mosque. The imam-that's the preacher-was turning in for the night when he heard a knock on the door. No one was there when he answered, but someone left two heads in a bag for him. The police are apparently having a tough time identifying the victims-they obviously aren't carrying wallets and their fingerprints are…uh…unavailable. There are no claims of responsibility reported by the media, so far. NYPD has stepped up patrols in traditionally Muslim areas and is warning people in that community not to go out at night alone."
"Any description of a suspect or suspects?" Karp asked. He'd arrived that morning with messages on his answering machine from the Arab-American Protection League and the Muslim Society of New York, who demanded a meeting. He'd put off returning the calls until he actually knew something about what was going on.
"Not really," Fulton said. "A taxi driver swears he saw two men-at least he thinks they were men-one tall and one short, jumping down a manhole about three blocks from the mosque after the heads were delivered."
"I take it the police don't put a lot of credence in the report."
Fulton shook his head. "They checked it out but didn't take it much further from there. According to our witness, not only did the suspects fly several inches off the ground, they flew down the manhole and then the cover replaced itself magically. Turns out the cabdriver is taking psychotropic medication prescribed for hallucinations. The office pool in our bureau is that he forgot to take his pill that day."
The rest of the meeting was, by comparison, uneventful. As the others stood to leave, Murrow asked, "We still on?"
"Yep, my office in, say, fifteen minutes?" Karp replied, looking at his watch.
Ten minutes later, Murrow and Kipman walked in on Karp, who was already deep in conversation with Clay Fulton, Ray Guma, and Richard Torrisi. As Karp was making introductions, Mrs. Milquetost buzzed and said, "Robin Repass and Pam Russell are here to see you."
When the two women entered there were more introductions, and then Karp asked them to all be seated as he walked over to an easel that had been set up behind his desk. "All right, we have quite a bit to get through and because this isn't entirely Manhattan DA business, I don't want to use up any more of the taxpayer's crime-fighting dime than I have to. A few of you-Harry, Ray, and Richard-are already aware of this, but I've been asked by Mayor-elect Denton to take on the case of Jayshon Sykes et al. v. City of New York…the civil lawsuit involving what is otherwise known as the Coney Island Rape Case."