Re: 3/30/00 - Raucci on "Wild Sex": "I Did Not!!"
News Briefs
By New Haven Advocate Staff
Published 03/30/00
Raucci on "Wild Sex": "I Did Not!!"
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A chink in the blue wall? For the first time, allegations of misconduct against former New Haven police detective Vincent Raucci have led to an overturned verdict.
In this case, a convicted rapist is getting a new trial thanks to a story about Raucci--that he had "wild sex" with the alleged rape victim the night he started investigating the case.
Raucci says not to believe this story.
The state Appellate Court this month ruled that the story raises doubts about the alleged victim's credibility--and that Superior Court Judge William Hadden should have allowed a jury to hear about it. The convicted rapist, who's serving an eight-year sentence, insists he had consensual sex with his accuser.
Raucci, in a series of e-mails last week from his home in New Mexico, insisted his relationship with the alleged victim was platonic. Asked if he'd ever had sex with her, he wrote: "I did not!!"
"She was a sweet and gentle woman and a talented artist," Raucci wrote. "We became friends after this incident. I gave her cigarettes and money from my pocket, the night of the incident, because numbnuts [the alleged rapist] had taken all that she had. ... I could not walk away knowing she had no money to buy food."
Raucci suggested that a key witness--an upstairs neighbor of the alleged victim, who said the woman apologized for any noise caused by her "wild sex" with Raucci--had a motive to lie.
Trial testimony revealed that the neighbor is related to the alleged rapist. (However, it also revealed that she told the cops where to find him.)
Raucci has questioned the motives of witnesses before--a couple of dozen of witnesses interviewed by the FBI in a separate investigation into whether he dealt and used drugs and framed two drug dealers for a double murder. The FBI concluded that Raucci did set up the dealers; the two men, sentenced to long prison terms, are seeking new trials. New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington and New Haven Police Chief Melvin Wearing maintain the two are guilty. Wearing, a former chief of detectives, supervised Raucci. Dearington's office relied on Raucci's evidence to prosecute many defendants.
--Paul Bass
newmassmedia.com |
