A Dublin firefighter charged with rape in Boston took the stand on Tuesday.
Terence Crosbie (39) is accused of raping an attorney (29) in a hotel room he shared with his fire brigade colleague, Liam O’Brien.
The complainant previously testified that she met Mr O’Brien at the Black Rose bar on March 14th, 2024, and went with him to the Omni Parker Hotel where they had consensual sex. Mr O’Brien then fell asleep and began to snore. She then got into the other hotel bed and later awoke to a man she didn’t know raping her and telling her that his “friend” was a “loser”, the court heard.
Mr Crosbie presented a different story. “There was nobody in my bed, my bed was empty,” he told the court. Mr Crosbie insisted he “absolutely did not” rape the complainant or have any physical contact with her at all.
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The complainant said when she arrived at the hotel room with Mr O’Brien at about 11.55pm, the room was empty, and when she awoke to the alleged assault at about 2am the bathroom light was on.
Mr Crosbie said he and Mr O’Brien had been randomly assigned as roommates, travelled with a group of more than 10 firefighters to march in the St Patrick’s Day parade and arrived in town earlier that afternoon. After a night of bar hopping with his colleagues, in which the married father of two admitted kissing another woman at The Black Rose, he returned to the hotel room shortly before Mr O’Brien, and began fiddling with the radiator.
“The door to the room opened behind me shortly thereafter,” he said. He claims he did not exchange words with Mr O’Brien or the complainant but that he “read behind the lines and more or less immediately left”. He waited on an armchair by “the lift” for two hours.
“When I say ‘lift’ I mean ‘elevator’,” Mr Crosbie clarified to the American jurors.
The Dubliner’s Irish accent was noted frequently by defence attorney Daniel C Reilly who asked his client to “speak slowly and clearly so people can hear you even if it’s slower than usual”.
Mr Crosbie told the court he would never use the word “loser” as was attributed to him by the complainant, calling the phrase “American slang”.
The complainant testified that the bathroom light was on at the time of the assault, and the room was partially illuminated, although she could not recall the assailant having birthmarks or tattoos, stating she was focused on finding her way to safety.
Mr Crosbie testified that the room was dark when he returned, he used his phone as a torch and “scooted” the clothing left on his bed on to the floor, pulled back the covers and went to bed in his boxer shorts. He heard someone get up, gather their clothes and leave a short time after.
The court saw the defendant had eight tattoos, on his arms and legs.
The court previously heard Mr Crosbie booked an early fight home after he was questioned by police. The state closed their case with video of Mr Crosbie being apprehended on an Aer Lingus flight later that evening.
Mr Crosbie testified that after he was questioned by police, he spoke to his superior officers, who flew in with another group of Dublin Fire Brigade members on a later flight. He said he approached them “looking for advice” and insisted “I didn’t do this.”
[ Boston rape trial complainant tells court she woke up with stranger on top of herOpens in new window ]
When he returned to his room, he saw the door was left open. He told the court he was suspicious that “someone had been in my room” and felt like a “rabbit in the headlights” due to the “big allegation” against him, so he packed his bags.
“Did you leave because you had committed a crime and wanted to escape?” asked Mr Reilly.
“No, I did not.”
Assistant district attorney Erin Murphy asked Mr Crosbie about his interview with Boston Police, noting he asked officers multiple questions about the “legal terms” of rape and the complainant’s allegation.
“Is she saying someone pinned her down and had sex with her?” Mr Crosbie asked, according to Ms Murphy who read from a transcript of the police interview.
Ms Murphy asked Mr Crosbie about an account he gave to police regarding masturbation. Mr Crosbie allegedly told police he masturbated in the bed when Mr O’Brien was at breakfast, and asked if it was possible for his DNA to get on the complainant that way.
Ms Murphy noted the timing of his arrival the previous day. “You didn’t really have time separate from Mr O’Brien in the hotel room,” she said.
“True,” he said.
“There was no breakfast for Liam that morning in Boston,” Ms Murphy said.
“No,” he said.
“You were telling that story to try to anticipate why your DNA might be found,” he said.
“No that’s not true,” answered Mr Crosbie. “My DNA was not found on her body,” he said. “I didn’t touch her,” he told the court.
Earlier that day the court heard from the state’s witness, Rebecca Boissaye, a criminalist at the Boston Police Crime Lab, who testified that she was able to identify the complainant and Mr O’Brien as DNA contributors in the samples collected.
Because the material collected was overwhelmingly female, Ms Boissaye recommended additional Y-STR testing, or male-specific testing. Searching for DNA is “like finding a needle in a haystack”; the Y-STR process is “like a magnet” because it only identifies male DNA, she said.
Forensic criminologist Alexis DeCesaris, a senior analyst at Bode Technology, conducted Y-STR testing and found “a mixture” of two male individuals in the samples but stated that “no conclusions could be made” identifying either Mr Crosbie or Mr O’Brien as contributors.
“The mixture profile did not meet our threshold to confidently determine and say that both contributors were represented adequately in the mixture profile,” she said.
Defence attorney Patrick Garrity suggested the second male contributor could be due to a secondary transfer, rather than direct contact, or contamination.
“Even when evidence is collected and packaged and tested under strict protocols and strict contamination controls, low-level DNA can still appear on an item due to trace transfer.”
“Yes,” said Ms DeCesaris.
