Gang-Rape Accuser’s Mother Disputes Ex-Pals’ Testimony

Defense lawyers in an Orange County gang-rape retrial finished their case Thursday after three days of trying to establish that a girl who has been called a habitual liar would also lie about being sexually assaulted.

But the testimony of one of their final witnesses appeared to undercut some of the defense’s earlier witnesses. For example, the mother of the alleged victim contradicted two of her daughter’s former friends, who had testified that the girl said during a game of pool three days after the incident that being raped was a good way to get presents.

Her mother testified that because she and her daughter spent much of that day being interviewed at the Newport Beach Police Department, her daughter wouldn’t have had the opportunity to make that remark.

“Nobody came over to play pool or anything that night?” asked Chief Deputy District Atty. Chuck Middleton during cross-examination.

“No,” Jane Doe’s mother said, sounding mystified.

Nor, she said, was her daughter allowed to use her car for a week after the July 6, 2002, incident -- conflicting with a witness’ testimony that Jane Doe had bragged about the presents in her car during that period.

Defendants Gregory Haidl, now 19, and Kyle Nachreiner and Keith Spann, both 20, each could face up to 23 years in prison if convicted of raping the girl, who was 16 at the time. The suspects videotaped the incident in the Corona del Mar garage of Haidl’s father, Donald Haidl, then an assistant sheriff. The tape, which prosecutors say shows the girl unaware and unresponsive while the three defendants have sex with her, is their primary evidence, but defense attorneys say she was feigning her stupor.

At the time of the incident, all four teenagers lived in Rancho Cucamonga. Since then, Gregory Haidl has returned to Orange County and is now being held in the county jail after violating bail terms.

Jane Doe’s parents, as in the first trial for the defendants last summer, were called to testify about their daughter’s frequent lies to them about where she was going and who she was with. But Jane Doe’s mother on Thursday downplayed the defense’s implication that her daughter would also mislead people about being raped.

Her daughter’s lies were those of “a typical teenager,” she said.

Jane Doe’s father was openly hostile toward defense attorney Joseph G. Cavallo. When Cavallo asked him if he knew Alex Chapman, one of Jane Doe’s former friends, the father paused to think. “You don’t know a girl who’s been friends with your daughter since kindergarten?” Cavallo asked.

“Do you know every one of your daughter’s friends?” the father asked.

Cavallo: “Yes.”

The father: “I doubt it.”

Later, he apologized for the exchange. “Your honor, I apologize, but when he asks me stupid questions like that, I can’t possibly remember who my daughter’s friends were when she was a baby.”

Defense attorneys streamlined their case -- as did prosecutors -- after jurors in the first trial deadlocked on rape charges against the defendants. The defense spent almost two weeks presenting its case then, and just three days this time.

Their final witness Thursday, a neurologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and UCLA professor, testified that Jane Doe’s movements during several segments of the videotape showed that she was conscious and that she “definitely has the ability to say no.”

Middleton said the defense failed to divert attention from the video of the incident. He said that even if defense lawyers proved Jane Doe had a habit of lying, jurors couldn’t ignore a videotape showing the defendants assaulting her after she had passed out.

Rebuttal witnesses may testify Tuesday. Closing arguments are scheduled to start Wednesday in Judge Francisco P. Briseno’s Santa Ana courtroom.