Semen from two different men — and a hair from a third — were recovered from the bed of the alleged victim in the Manhattan “rape cops” trial, but none of the DNA evidence belongs to the suspects, an expert testified yesterday.
An NYPD criminalist told jurors that sample head and pubic hairs — 80 plucked from each cop — were carefully compared with DNA collected from the woman’s East Village apartment, particularly from her bed, where she told jurors she awoke as she was being raped by Officer Kenneth Moreno, 43, as his NYPD partner, Franklin Mata, 27, acted as a lookout. Nothing matched, the witness testified.
One semen stain came from the used mattress that the Manhattan woman testified she’d been given a couple of years ago by a girlfriend.
Another was from a pillow sham she said she rarely washed.
The stray hair was from a blanket she said she kept folded on the bed.
The alleged victim had testified that she’d broken up with her boyfriend four months before the 2008 incident, and an expert said the semen stains could have remained on the surface for “years.”
Defense lawyers welcomed yesterday’s testimony.
“There is plenty of forensic evidence in this case,” said defense lawyer Joseph Tacopina. “But none of it’s from our guys.”
Moreno and Mata are accused of conspiring in the rape of the drunken, semiconscious, 29-year-old fashion executive after being dispatched to her address to help her out of a taxi.
Prosecutor Randolph Clarke said that just because there were no matching pubic hairs doesn’t mean there was no sex.
“Why is it that you may not find pubic hairs?” he asked. The criminalist replied, “The person may not be shedding hairs at that moment.”
A second criminalist told jurors that no semen was detected in the samples from the woman’s hospital rape kit, but, “if a condom was used, of course, semen would not be present.”