Tyson Asked to Explain Differences in Testimony

Mike Tyson was rattled at times during 1 hour 17 minutes of cross-examination Saturday morning, but he maintained that the woman who accuses him of rape consented to have sex with him.

On the 11th day of Tyson’s trial here, chief prosecutor Greg Garrison seemed to annoy the former heavyweight champion several times. But for the most part, Tyson, 25, kept his composure.

Garrison stood closer to Tyson that he has to any other witness and was shoulder-to-shoulder with him, going over Tyson’s grand jury testimony.

At one point, Tyson said: “Hey, can I read this? You’re a little smarter than I am.”

Said Garrison: “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

Garrison questioned Tyson about his Friday testimony, when he described his date with the 18-year-old Rhode Island woman who accuses him.

Tyson is charged with three rape-related counts and faces a maximum possible sentence of 60 years in prison if convicted.

Earlier, the woman testified Tyson promised her a “seeing-the-sights” ride in his limousine, but instead raped her in his hotel room. On Friday, Tyson said when he made the date with her, he told her directly that he wanted to have sex with her. Tyson used a vulgarism to describe the act.

“Why didn’t you tell that to the grand jury last September?” Garrison asked.

“Well, I did . . . or I was going to, and the guy (David Dreyer, the prosecutor who questioned him before the grand jury) interrupted me,” Tyson said. “And there were young kids in the room. I didn’t feel comfortable using the word.”

Garrison then pointed out to Tyson that he had told the grand jury: “You just don’t go up to a strange girl and tell her you want to (have sex with) her.”

Tyson also said under Garrison’s questioning that he had intended to have sex with the woman in his limousine.

“When I called her on the (limousine’s) phone, I told her to put on something loose and come down,” Tyson said. “I had intentions of doing it in the limo.”

Garrison: “And you figured she’d come right down and have sex with you, right?”

Tyson: “Yes, based on our earlier conversation.”

Garrison: “So what difference did it make what she was wearing?”

Tyson: “Well, if she wore tight-fitting jeans, it would make it complicated.”

Garrison later tested Tyson’s memory of what the woman wore.

“I’m not a professional on women’s attire,” Tyson retorted.

Garrison asked Tyson why, as he had testified Friday, he and the woman sat on Tyson’s hotel bed and talked for 15 minutes before having sex.

“If you were doing all this hugging and kissing and touching in the limousine, why did you then sit on the bed and talk for 15 minutes? How come you did that?” Garrison asked loudly.

“At that point, why did you talk about schools, Rhode Island . . . why slow things down at that point?”

“We just had a conversation, that’s all,” Tyson said, his voice quiet. “I mean, we’d just come in the door. I wasn’t going to make passionate love to her on the floor.”

Tyson was plainly annoyed when Garrison questioned him about having sex with rap singer B. Angie B. during his 36 hours in Indianapolis. And when he asked Tyson how many times he had had sex with her, Tyson said: “Oh, man, I don’t know--one, four . . . I don’t remember.”

Both Tyson and his accuser have testified that Tyson first approached her by asking: “You’re a nice Christian girl, aren’t you?” Of that, Garrison said:

“The truth is, it didn’t matter to you if she was a Buddhist, an atheist or a Christian, did it?”

“No,” Tyson said.

Of his Tyson’s direct manner in propositioning women, Garrison said:

“A former heavyweight champion of the world--I don’t imagine you get your face slapped to often, do you?”

“No,” Tyson said.

Photos of Tyson at the dance rehearsal show him wearing a “Together in Christ” button. Friday, he had said a soldier returning from the Persian Gulf War had given it to him that day.

Garrison: “Did you feel closer to Christ, wearing that button?”

Tyson didn’t respond.

Of Tyson’s claim that he had bluntly stated his intentions to the woman, Garrison asked:

“Are you telling this jury that you walked up to an 18-year-old Christian girl, just graduated from high school, and told her: ‘I want to (expletive) you.’ And that at that point she said: ‘That’s bold--call me?’ ”

Tyson: “That’s what she told me.”

Tyson had told the grand jury that his bodyguard, Dale Edwards, was in the parlor of his hotel suite during the time he and his accuser had sex.

“But you know from testimony he was all over the hotel,” Garrison said.

“I supposed he was out there,” Tyson replied. “I don’t really know.”

“Sort of like supposing somebody wants to have sex with you,” the prosecutor said, “but you don’t really know.”

Rebuttal witness are expected to be called at today’s session. Garrison said Saturday he expected closing arguments Monday.

Material from the Associated Press is included in this story.