Rape Case Defense Questions Motives

Defense attorneys in a high-profile rape trial continued their campaign Tuesday to batter the alleged victim’s credibility, accusing her of wanting charges pressed to get money from the wealthy father of one of the three defendants.

The woman denied the claim and seemed increasingly irritated as the lawyer continued to press her.

“I’m here because these boys need to go to jail,” she said forcefully on her fourth and final day of testimony.

Accused in the July 2002 incident are Gregory Scott Haidl, 18, and Kyle Joseph Nachreiner and Keith James Spann, both 19, who each face 55 years in prison if convicted. All three defendants and the alleged victim lived in San Bernardino County at the time.

The alleged assault happened at the Corona del Mar home of Orange County Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl, the day after the girl had been with the boys at the same house and had sex with two of them.

The incident was captured on a videotape that has become the central piece of evidence and that prosecutors say shows the boys sexually assaulting her with objects including a pool cue and Snapple bottle. Prosecutors say the boys gave the girl, then 16, a date-rape drug and then raped her while she was unconscious.

Seeking to impugn her motive for cooperating with the prosecution, defense attorneys Tuesday asked the woman, known in court as Jane Doe, if one of her friends had told her the Haidl family would give her money if she refused to testify.

Attorneys have been barred from asking Jane Doe about a $2.5 million settlement offer that her lawyer made to the Haidl family because she has not filed a lawsuit against any of the defendants. Defense attorneys, however, showed the offer to jurors in their opening statements.

On Tuesday, defense attorneys also underscored their contention that the woman’s testimony is unreliable by repeatedly asking why she lied about events of that evening or downplayed their seriousness when she was questioned first by her parents and then by police.

She said that embarrassment and fear made her deny that she felt sore after the incident, that she had consumed a large amount of alcohol and that she had known of the videotape that had been made of a prior sexual encounter with Spann.

“It was so confusing to me,” said the woman. “I just felt like I needed to lie or downplay it.”

But she was telling the truth, she said, when she told her father that she had no memory of the alleged rape itself.

Outside the courtroom, Nachreiner’s attorney John Barnett, suggested that she claimed to have no memory of the incident only because she didn’t want her parents to think poorly of her. The defense contends Jane Doe was a willing participant and only feigned unconsciousness.

“Her father was giving her an ultimatum, and she chose the only option available to her [to save face],” Barnett said after testimony ended Tuesday. “She is aware from looking at the television that amnesia is a consequence of date-rape drugs, and so her dad gave her an out.”

Defense attorneys also questioned why Jane Doe met the boys on the night of the alleged rape after finding out that they were showing footage at parties of the earlier encounter with Spann.

She liked Spann, she testified, and she wanted to believe that his behavior was an aberration produced by a desire to show off for Haidl. She returned to the Corona del Mar house to have fun and give Spann a second chance, she said.

“I kind of put everything else aside and focused on my feelings for him,” she testified.

After asking her about her previous lies and memory lapses, Spann’s attorney, Peter Morreale, asked her if she just didn’t remember giving the boys permission to do whatever they pleased.

“I know for a fact I didn’t,” she said. “Before I went completely unconscious, I never gave consent.”

She was hesitant to prosecute the boys at first, she admitted.

“I didn’t want to get them in trouble if there wasn’t a reason to get them in trouble,” she said. After learning more details about what they were alleged to have done, however, “I realized how horrific it was and that they needed to be prosecuted.”