In a sudden reversal by the protection, the person accused of abducting and raping a lady over a number of days in Charlestown took the stand Monday, giving rambling testimony and claiming the present horrifying case is all a “persecution” of him.
A really animated Victor Pena took the stand in Suffolk Superior Court after his protection beforehand had rested its case on Friday. Charged with kidnapping and rape, Pena spent about an hour strolling the jury by means of his model of the January 2019 night time in query.
In his recounting, by means of a Spanish-language interpreter, he was merely serving to a drunk younger girl throughout a snow storm in Boston.
“I lifted her like an angel” when she couldn’t stroll proper, he mentioned.
Though the girl testified that he took her house when she was too drunk to do something about it after which saved her there — and witnesses and cameras mentioned the identical about her state when downtown — he claimed that she requested to accompany him to Charlestown. Once they received there, he mentioned she was simply wonderful and merely was being “a good actress” in any other case.
“We liked each other a lot,” Pena mentioned, talking from behind a masks and waving his arms as his shoulder-length grey hair and a rosary necklace bounced round. He claimed she’d insisted on intercourse and that he’d resisted for some time, however then relented.
She testified final week that he held her captive and repeatedly raped her.
The Herald is withholding the girl’s id as a result of it’s the paper’s coverage to not title victims of sexual assault until they want to be recognized publicly.
Pena’s lawyer, Lorenzo Perez, let his consumer ramble, with Pena speaking about bathrobes, the dimensions of his mattress, MBTA fare gates, his assorted Chihuahuas from over time, the cleanliness of his public housing residence and his trials and travails at casinos, which “stole my money.”
Pena at numerous factors stood up, drawing rebukes from the decide, and as soon as pulled up his shirt to counsel there was proof the cops had damaged his ribs three and a half years in the past.
After Perez wrapped up his questions, the prosecution declined to ask something additional.
Pena mentioned he needed to speak additional, claiming it is a “persecution” to get him out of public housing, and that authorities and the media are “defaming” him.
Throughout the trial, Pena’s protection has targeted on his usually weird conduct, beforehand saying that the trial will hinge on his consumer’s intent and frame of mind. Perez beforehand had rested his case Friday with out calling any witnesses earlier than the reversal on Monday to convey Pena to the stand.
After Pena wrapped up on the stand, the prosecution tried to name a forensic psychologist to inform the jury that he doesn’t assume Pena truly has a extreme psychological sickness that causes him to be out of contact with actuality, however the protection objected.
Perez mentioned that Pena hadn’t testified in any respect about his psychological state, so there’s nothing to rebut, and if he “gave that impression” that he had points, that’s simply how it’s.
That argument didn’t transfer Judge Anthony Campo, although, who advised the protection, “You can’t have it both ways.”
The psychologist, Dr. John Young, did then testify, telling the jury that the delusions Pena claimed to expertise — that he couldn’t bear in mind his birthday, that he was saying all the things in black and white, and that voices have been speaking to him in numerous languages — are ones that don’t truly occur to folks with precise psychoses. That meant, Young mentioned, that there was had “substantial question about the reliability” of Pena’s claims of psychological points throughout his evaluations of the defendant.
The case will resume Tuesday with closing arguments, after which the decide will put it within the jury’s arms.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”