Metro

Memory loss cops’ gain

UNDER FIRE: NYPD cops kenneth Moreno (left), accused of rape, and Franklin Mata, his alleged accomplice, in court yesterday. (Steven HirSCH)

She can’t remember how much she drank. She can’t remember how many times she threw up.

On the night a “helpful” cop allegedly raped her in her own bed while his partner stood lookout, a beautiful, young fashion executive had drank so hard, her memory of that night in 2008 remains seriously impaired, defense lawyers are arguing as the trial nears jury selection today.

“The complainant repeatedly indicated that she ‘blacked out,’ or went blank or black,” according to the latest defense filings, referring to the woman’s still-sealed grand-jury testimony.

Lawyers for Officer Kenneth Moreno, accused of raping the then-27-year-old woman, and his alleged lookout partner, Officer Franklin Mata, disclosed these details from the woman’s testimony in a failed attempt to get the indictment tossed yesterday.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro told both sides that jury selection will begin promptly tomorrow morning, preceded only by his final pretrial ruling on the potential dismissal of any of the 18 lesser counts of official misconduct in the indictment.

The filings also reveal for the first time the extent of the woman’s internal injuries, which may prove a buttress to the prosecution’s case.

She suffered from “erythema,” according to the defense filings, an irritation which, according to a grand-jury medical witness’s testimony, was consistent with the insertion of a “penis [which] actually came in contact with the cervix.”

But the defense filing’s references to the woman’s grand-jury testimony also reveal a huge hurdle for Manhattan prosecutors: her shaky memory.

“She cannot recall: (1) how much alcohol she drank that evening, (2) entering the cab to leave the Park Slope club at which she had been partying, (3) the cab pulling to the side of the road in Brooklyn for several minutes for her to vomit, (4) how she entered her own apartment, and (5) how she got from her bathroom into her bedroom,” the filings read.

She also can’t remember any conversations with the cab driver “or the police officers who assisted her,” according to the filings. And she can’t recall on which of the four times the officers were caught on tape entering her apartment the alleged rape occurred, the filings say.

It has previously been revealed that the woman’s memory was so clouded she could not identify either Moreno or Mata in photo or in in-person lineups.

In the filings, defense lawyers Joseph Tacopina and Edward Mandery took one final shot at the DA’s office, saying that prosecutors delayed the case twice due to avoidable errors in evidence processing.

laura.italiano@nypost.com