For the past year, the country has been following the sordid tale of the two NYPD “rape cops” who were accused of sexually assaulting a drunk woman whom they were called to remove from a taxi cab and take into her apartment. After a night of partying, the 27-year-old Gap employee was put into a cab by friends. She vomited on herself and was disoriented, so a cab driver called police to come to her aid. The cops who arrived on the scene helped her inside her place, but returned to her apartment several times over the course of the night to “check up on her.” Ex-officer Kenneth Moreno claimed he cuddled the blackout-drunk woman in her bed while she wore only a bra, although the woman herself claims he raped her and can recall her panties being removed. Moreno’s partner, Franklin Mata, allegedly hung out elsewhere in the woman’s apartment while Moreno was alone with her in the bedroom. The pair were also accused of faking 911 calls that would allow them to stay in the area near the woman’s apartment.
Shocking those of us who followed the case, Moreno was found not guilty of sexual assault. Jurors did not trust the victim’s memory because she had been blackout drunk; they also said they could not convict him due to a lack of DNA evidence. (Moreno had admitted on tape, when he was approached by the victim at his police station, that he had used a condom.) The surely-despondent victim released a sad statement after the verdict to say she was “devastated and disappointed by the jury’s decision.”
So it is in this environment that one of the jurors in the case, Patrick Kirkland, decided to cash in, publishing an article on the blog Gothamist called “Confessions of a ‘Rape Cop’ Juror,” for which he charged $1.99 on Kindle and $2.99 on PDF. Keep reading »
