Defendant’s Outburst Disrupts Opening of 2nd Jogger Rape Trial

The trial of two teen-agers charged with the rape and attempted murder of a jogger in Central Park was disrupted just after it opened today when a defendant broke down and screamed.

“No! No! No! I can’t deal with this!” cried defendant Kharey Wise as four court officers ushered him out of the courtroom. “I can’t take this! It isn’t true!”

His outburst came just after assistant Dist. Atty. Elizabeth Lederer completed her opening statement in the trial, the second stemming from last year’s attack.

She said Wise, 18, and his co-defendant, Kevin Richardson, 16, would convict themselves through the statements they gave police, statements the defense argues were obtained improperly.

As Lederer was winding up her remarks, Wise talked to himself, rocked in his seat and held his hands to his face as if he was praying. He bit his lip and pounded his forehead with his fist.

After she finished, and the judge announced a brief break for the jury before the defense’s opening remarks, Wise began crying and yelling. He also vomited.

Howard Diller, attorney for Richardson, asked the judge for a mistrial because of the other defendant’s outburst. But as the trial resumed after a break, the judge denied the mistrial motion and warned Wise to behave.

Opening arguments for the defense then proceeded.

The two teens are among six charged with the attack on the jogger on the night of April 19, 1989.

The first trial ended in five-to-10-year sentences--the maximum for juvenile offenders--for Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Antron McCray, all 16. They were convicted of rape, assault, robbery and riot but acquitted of attempted murder and sodomy.

Wise, 16 at the time of the attacks, faces adult penalties that could total up to 57 years in prison if he is convicted on all counts. Richardson, 14 when he was arrested, faces the same five to 10 years as the three youths convicted in the first trial.

Lederer said Richardson, in his videotaped statement, described how he and the other teen-agers hid in the dark, behind trees, and attacked the jogger when she ran past.

She said Richardson describes how they ripped her shirt off, how she screamed for help and how she scratched Richardson’s face.

Lederer said Wise made two videotaped statements because he admittedly lied to police in the first one.

In the second tape, he describes how he held her leg and fondled it while others raped her.