A Dublin firefighter accused of rape during the St Patrick’s Day weekend last year “thought he could come to Boston and rape with impunity”, a prosecutor told his trial in closing arguments on Monday.
Terence Crosbie (38) is charged with raping a 29-year-old woman in a hotel bedroom while his Dublin Fire Brigade colleague Liam O’Brien was asleep in a separate bed.
The woman says she had consensual sex with Mr O’Brien at the Omni Parker House hotel after meeting him at The Black Rose bar in Boston on March 14th, 2024. She later fell asleep in a separate bed but awoke to find Mr Crosbie raping her, the trial has heard.
Mr Crosbie denies the charges.
Closing arguments came after five days of testimony during the trial at Suffolk superior courthouse in Boston in which both Mr Crosbie and the alleged victim gave evidence.
On Monday, defence counsel Daniel C Reilly told the court that because Mr O’Brien “was supposedly asleep” and declined to participate in the trial, “there are only two people who can know what happened”.
He said the woman was a “less-than-reliable reporter due to intoxication and memory lapses”.
Mr Reilly told the court the woman could not remember Mr O’Brien’s first or last name or that Mr Crosbie had been in the Omni Parker House hotel room when she and Mr O’Brien first arrived.
He also said she did not recall Mr Crosbie having tattoos, did not cry out to Mr O’Brien for help and initially claimed her alleged assailant was about her height. Mr Reilly pointed out that Mr Crosbie is taller than the woman.
Mr Reilly also sought to discredit the DNA evidence taken from the complainant revealing two male profiles.
Expert witnesses testified during the trial that there was an insufficient amount of DNA to conclusively identify the second male contributor from the samples.
Mr Reilly suggested the second male profile could have been someone other than Mr Crosbie.
Prosecutor Erin Murphy argued that Mr Crosbie’s testimony was “rehearsed and insincere”.
“Didn’t it seem a bit scripted until he got caught fudging it?” she asked.
When Mr Crosbie took the stand previously, Ms Murphy played a portion of his interview with police in which he told detectives he had masturbated in the hotel room and questioned whether his DNA could have gotten on the complainant that way.
In cross-examination, Ms Murphy said Mr Crosbie would not have had time to masturbate alone in his room until after the alleged assault.
“He tried to come up with some bogus lie to explain why his DNA might be found later,” Ms Murphy told the jury on Monday.
She said Mr Crosbie “thought he could come to Boston and rape with impunity and then skip town like it never happened. But that’s not how it works here.”
The prosecutor said the complainant’s “nightmare was real”. She was a “human being” who was questioned repeatedly about the alleged events.
“She didn’t fabricate or hallucinate a highly detailed and very specific account of a stranger raping her just because she drank some alcohol,” Ms Murphy said.
“If she was so drunk and she was making up a story, how did she get so much right?” she asked, noting that details of the woman’s account were supported by CCTV footage.
The trial continues before a jury of eight men and four women.
