Rape Accuser’s Drink Consumption at Issue

After at least four tearful breakdowns in as many days of testimony, the alleged victim in an Orange County gang-rape retrial contained her sobs Wednesday as she told a hushed courtroom why she was testifying.

“It doesn’t matter what kind of girl I was,” she said. “I’ve known [this] since I was a little kid: You can’t have sex with an unconscious person.”

The woman was 16 when the three male defendants, then 17, allegedly raped her in a videotaped 2002 incident at the Corona del Mar home of an assistant sheriff at the time -- the father of one of the accused. She has testified that she was unconscious and remembers nothing of that night after gulping 8.5 ounces of gin. The defendants say she was a consenting partner feigning unconsciousness.

Called Jane Doe in court, the 18-year-old woman finished testifying Wednesday. In more than 20 hours on the stand, she maintained that she did not consent -- and would not have -- to the activities shown on the videotape.

The recording, which will be shown in court today, purportedly shows the defendants having sex with her on a couch, then on a pool table, where they allegedly penetrated her with various objects.

The defendants, who could get 23 years in prison if convicted, are Gregory Haidl, son of retired Assistant Sheriff Donald Haidl and now 19, and Keith Spann and Kyle Nachreiner, now both 20. Spann and Nachreiner, along with Jane Doe, still live in Rancho Cucamonga, where they grew up; Haidl has since returned from Rancho Cucamonga to Orange County.

During Jane Doe’s testimony, defense attorneys hammered at her credibility and inconsistencies between her current testimony, her statements at the first trial last summer and her interviews with police. Jurors in the first trial deadlocked, mostly in favor of acquittal, and the defense accused Jane Doe of altering her story so the current jury would convict the defendants.

“It explains why her testimony would change now, having convinced only one juror,” John D. Barnett, Nachreiner’s attorney, told the judge after the jury had left. “She needed to change her version of events.”

In the first trial she testified that when she partied with the defendants late on July 4, the night before the alleged rape, she downed 10 shots of rum and one shot of tequila within an hour. Still, she said, she was able to think and consensually have sex with two of the defendants and skinny-dip with the third.

But in the ongoing case, Jane Doe said the drinks she had described as shots were actually less, and more like “swigs” or “mouthfuls.”

During cross-examination Wednesday by defense attorney Joseph G. Cavallo, the lawyer counted out 11 shot glasses of brown-tinted water into a cup. He placed the cup next to another, into which he had measured the 8.5 ounces of water, representing the gin she drank before the alleged rape in the early hours of July 6. The July 4 cup had about 2 inches more liquid than the July 6 glass.

“On 7/4 you were tipsy,” Cavallo said, pointing to the fuller glass. Then, indicating the other cup, he added, “And on this date you don’t remember anything.”

“I was unconscious, correct,” Jane Doe replied.