He believed she was being truthful — at least to the best of her recollection.
But Juror No. 12 in the explosive “rape cops” trial said yesterday he had no choice but to vote for acquittal. And he feels sick about it.
“There is no glee in what happened today,” Richard Schimenti said. “It’s not a happy day.”
“I just feel like bawling. We just did our jobs.”
He said the lack of physical evidence and the fact that the accuser “blacked out” from booze forced him and other jurors to vote “not guilty” on rape charges against now-fired cops Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata.
Still, Schimenti said he feels “terrible” for the woman.
“I believe she believes she was raped,” said Schimenti. But, he added, “There was no DNA, no semen. Her testimony was based on her lack of memory.
“We were all really moved by [her]. She believed she was raped. There was no corroboration,” said the Greenwich Village man.
“She admitted she blacked out, she passed out. She admitted she only remembered five things that night. The prosecution did not prove rape. We all know there is no evidence of a rape, except she said it.
“Just because she’s believable doesn’t mean it happened.”
“She was drunk. I don’t believe she would have gotten into this situation if she wasn’t . . . She was blasted. She was a mess.”
Still, Schimenti said the accuser “was a brilliant witness” who “was more than credible.”
“She brought tears to my eyes,” he said.
In contrast, he said, “I believe the defense [lawyers] taught” the two cops “how to conduct themselves” during their testimony.
When jurors began deliberating, they immediately found they were split 9-3 in favor of acquittal — with Schimenti in the majority.
“When you got to deliberations, we have a duty to stick to the letter of the law . . . The prosecution failed to prove her case,” he said. “A lot of things added up to ‘things that may have happened,’ ” he said.
But, he added, “feelings, thoughts, beliefs are not our job.”
Ironically, for Schimenti and the others, a requested readback during deliberations to jurors of supposedly the strongest direct evidence against the cops — the woman’s testimony of being violated — sealed their decision.
“To have a cold readback without a specific force” — the woman’s tears, tormented face and strained voice — “made the difference,” Schimenti said.
And juror no. 7, Eric Casiano, thought both the accuser and the defense had stories that “were full of holes.”
“But you are innocent until proven guilty,” he said. “The people never proved their case, except for misconduct.”
Casiano, who lives in Harlem, said a major factor in clearing Moreno was when the woman confronted him in front of his station house, “he was just trying to get away from her. He didn’t know what she was talking about.”
Additional reporting by C.J. Sullivan