Prosecutors in the retrial of a Dublin firefighter arrested in Boston on rape charges told jurors the defendant was using his anonymity far from home to commit rape.
“When one woman walked away he found another woman who couldn’t,” assistant district attorney Danielle Mendes told jurors in the state’s opening statement.
Terence Crosbie (39) is charged with assaulting a 29-year-old attorney in a shared hotel room while his colleague Liam O’Brien slept in the opposite bed.
Mr Crosbie has denied the allegations.
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Jurors were seated on Thursday morning. In the afternoon, they heard that the complainant had consensual relations with Mr O’Brien at the Omni Parker Hotel after meeting him at The Black Rose bar on Thursday, March 14th, 2024.
Mr Crosbie and Mr O’Brien had travelled to Boston with a group of more than 10 members of the fire brigade to march in the St Patrick’s Day parade that Sunday and were gathered at The Black Rose bar that evening.
Ms Mendes told jurors they will see CCTV footage of Mr Crosbie “kissing” another woman at The Black Rose Bar hours before assaulting a 29-year-old attorney at the Omni Parker hotel.
“He used his trip to be anonymous far from home and to commit a rape he thought he could get away with,” Ms Mendes said.
She told the court the complainant fell asleep after having relations with Mr O’Brien, adding that when she woke up “there was a stranger on top of her”. That stranger was “naked, violating her body” and actively raping her, it was claimed.
That man had an “Irish accent” but he wasn’t “bald like Mr O’Brien”, Ms Mendes said. This man had a different physique and was insulting Mr O’Brien, she said.
Defence attorney Patrick Garrity began his opening statement with his hands on Mr Crosbie’s shoulder, insisting that his client is innocent and that he is seated in this courtroom because this is the “only avenue he has to fight these allegations”.
Mr Garrity told jurors that the only evidence the state has of what actually occurred inside the hotel room “is the word of a woman”.
He insisted that the complaint’s account is inconsistent and unreliable. “We do not convict people on maybes, we don’t convict people on what-ifs,” he said.
“When you listen to her and you hear her tell you that she had been drinking not for a little while but for ten hours that day . . .”
Mr Crosbie was arrested at the airport attempting to catch an early flight home after he was questioned about the rape by Boston police in March 2024. He has remained in remand ever since.
