Jury Views Video Showing Alleged Rape of Girl, 16

Graphic rap music and the giggling of teenage boys blasted through an Orange County courtroom Thursday as jurors watched a video that prosecutors said showed the sexual assault of an unconscious girl.

The jurors who appeared most distressed were men old enough to have their own teenage daughters. One juror gnawed the end of her ballpoint pen, never removing her eyes from the video monitor. Others cringed as they watched scenes in which, prosecutors said, the three defendants used a pool cue and Snapple bottle to penetrate the 16-year-old as she lay on a billiard table.

The 19-minute segment was filmed in the early hours of July 6, 2002, in the Corona del Mar garage of one of the defendant’s fathers. The public has been allowed to see only the preceding portions of the video, which include a high school project on the novel “Of Mice and Men.” The monitor facing the public was turned off when the video’s content turned sexual, including a consensual encounter between the girl -- referred to as Jane Doe in the courtroom -- and one of the defendants a week before the alleged rape.

Jurors were able to watch the full tape on one of five screens -- four smaller ones in front of them and a large screen at one end of the jury box that the attorneys and defendants were also able to see.

Prosecutors and attorneys for Gregory Haidl, now 19, and Kyle Nachreiner and Keith Spann, both 20, have detailed the tape’s contents in court in the current trial as well as a trial last summer that ended when the jury deadlocked. After gulping 8.5 ounces of gin from a foam cup, Jane Doe is said to be shown in various sexual positions with Nachreiner and Spann as Haidl films.

Prosecutors say the girl was passed out and “flopping around like a rag doll”; defense attorneys contend she was conscious and exaggerating her level of intoxication.

The playing of the tape followed nearly four days of testimony by Jane Doe, including more than a dozen hours of aggressive cross-examination on the discrepancies between her current testimony and her earlier statements in court and to police. Prosecution witnesses are expected to finish testifying Tuesday, and the defense has predicted it will need at least two weeks to present its case.

The defendants, who face up to 23 years in prison if convicted of all nine counts, all lived in Rancho Cucamonga when the alleged rape occurred. The filming took place during a party at the home of Donald Haidl, then an assistant sheriff, over the Fourth of July weekend.

In the beginning, Jane Doe teases Haidl for trying to remove her shirt, then says “I’m so [messed] up,” then she is not heard again. Later, the boys are heard talking about her. At other times they seem to address her, telling her to perform an action differently, then respond that it feels better.

“That’s the best [sex] I’ve ... had in a while,” Nachreiner says at one point.

A spanking sound is heard three times.

At least eight songs play during the video, which stops and starts during different scenes. Half of the jurors seemed to be writing down everything they saw, including one woman who wrinkled her nose as her eye volleyed back and forth from her notepad to the video. Others just stared intently. At one point, a juror who raised her hand to fix her hair kept her hand in midair for several seconds as her eyes grew larger.

As the jurors watched the film, Nachreiner and Spann took notes and avoided looking at the screens. But Haidl swiveled in his chair and watched it with as much intensity as the jurors.