Tape Doesn’t Lie, Jurors Told

For all the defense’s efforts to disparage the victim of a high-profile gang rape, jurors need only focus on a videotape that shows the sexual assault of the unconscious 16-year-old girl, an Orange County prosecutor argued in his closing presentation Wednesday.

When they begin deliberating the fate of the three young men, jurors should remember that the case is about “what they did, not who she is,” Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. Chuck Middleton said in his final, hourlong argument.

Middleton said the videotape of the July 2002 incident, made by the three defendants, showed the teenage boys having sex with a girl so drunk she was like a “125-pound wet noodle.”

But defense attorneys admonished jurors to consider the character of the young woman, who admitted on the stand to having had consensual sex with two of the defendants and fooling around naked with a third the night before the alleged rape. Attorneys also concentrated on inconsistencies in her testimony.

“Truth is a luxury she’s willing to live without, in order to tell a story,” said John Barnett, the attorney for Kyle Nachreiner, now 20.

Also charged are Keith Spann, 20, and Gregory Haidl, 19, at whose father’s Corona del Mar home the alleged rape took place. Donald Haidl was then an assistant sheriff but has since resigned to concentrate on his son’s legal troubles.

This is the second time the defendants have been tried for rape. Last summer, a mistrial was declared when another set of jurors deadlocked.

Closing arguments in the second trial are expected to conclude today. The jury will then begin deliberating.

As the defense team’s arguments stretched into the afternoon, jurors’ attention appeared to wane; their eyes wandered and note taking stopped.

But any afternoon nodding-off in the packed Santa Ana courtroom ended abruptly when a technician mistakenly showed on a monitor visible to spectators a dim, grainy frame from the videotape. For several seconds, court watchers could see Jane Doe on a pool table with Spann on top of her. A woman in the spectators’ area whispered to attorneys that the image was visible, and the technician turned off the monitor.

The public has not been allowed to see the videotape because the three defendants and the alleged victim were minors at the time. All four lived in San Bernardino County at the time of the incident.

Defense attorney Joseph G. Cavallo, who represents Haidl, had shown the image from the tape to demonstrate what he called “the care and concern” the defendants showed for the girl by placing a couch pillow under her head.

But in his statement, Middleton said that the young men forgot about the girl’s humanity once she had consumed 8.5 ounces of gin and passed out drunk.

“She was used as a body with orifices and then discarded,” he said.

The defendants face nine counts, including rape, by intoxication, with a bottle, cigarette and pool cue. Wielding the pool cue, Middleton said common sense would conclude that the girl -- whose eyes were closed and who flopped “like a rag doll” -- was unconscious during the assault.

“The star witness is the video camera, and it doesn’t lie,” Middleton said. “What you see is what you get.”

Middleton has repeatedly referred to the videotape, turned over to police by a woman who saw it and feared the female pictured in it was dead, as the main evidence in his case.

“When Mr. Nachreiner has to hold up Jane Doe so she doesn’t fall to the ground, from that point on, wouldn’t you think [the defendants] would have a clue?” he said.

Pointing to the large screen facing the jury box, he later returned to his theme: “Do you see free will on the video?”

In his turn before jurors, Cavallo called Middleton a “cheater” for the testimony Jane Doe gave about her drinking on the night of the incident and on the prior night. In the first trial, Jane Doe said she drank 11 shots on July 4 and only a beer and a mixed drink the night of the alleged rape.

She changed her testimony in this trial, saying she had 11 swigs of alcohol during the first night -- only about five shots.

In his closing argument, Cavallo also blamed Newport Beach police and Jane Doe’s parents for telling her that it was OK to say she didn’t remember what happened, and he blamed the news media for “blowing up the case into rape.”

But the largest share of responsibility for what happened July 6, 2002, Cavallo said, belongs to Jane Doe.

“What she lives for,” Cavallo said, “is drinking and sex.”

He then alluded to the prison term the defendants could face. The defendants’ potential sentences range from probation to 23 years in state prison.

“This girl is a train wreck waiting to happen, and these boys are right in her path,” he said. “Now that train is still standing, and these boys are hanging on for their lives.”

In the first trial, jurors deliberated 15 hours before telling Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.