PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. April 9— The three New York Mets players who were accused of raping a woman here last year will not face criminal charges, a state prosecutor said today, because the case lacks corroborating evidence and comes down "to the word of a victim against that of three individuals."
Bruce H. Colton, the state attorney of the 19th Judicial Circuit of Florida, said the case against the players, Dwight Gooden, Daryl Boston and Vince Coleman, was not strong enough to bring before a jury with much likelihood of success.
Officials in Colton's office called the case "vulnerable" after a monthlong investigation by the police.
"After painstaking analysis and receiving input from the victim and the Port St. Lucie Police Department, we have concluded that our duty in this case is to decline prosecution," said David C. Morgan, assistant state attorney in charge of the St. Lucie County office.
He said the decision was "not easy," but that it would have been hard to prove that any sexual relations the woman may have had with the players was not consensual.
After learning of the prosecutors' decision, the three players offered muted statements of relief, but suggested there was little that could undo the damage the case had had on their reputations.
"We've all been hurt, especially me," said Mr. Gooden after the Mets played the Cardinals today in St. Louis. "I'm happy it's over. But I was confident throughout." [ Page B16. ]
Mr. Colton said the woman was informed of his decision on Tuesday. Her lawyer, Bernard Dempsey of Orlando, called her "deeply disappointed" and said she understood that the state had "a difficult task."
"On the other hand, my client is comfortable in the knowledge that she told the authorities the absolute truth," Mr. Dempsey said. He said that he and the woman would discuss "what other relief is available to her," a suggestion, possibly, that she was considering a civil suit.
In announcing the results of the case, Mr. Colton said his office had reviewed 450 pages of documents for six days.
Among the case's shortcomings, Mr. Colton said, were "the fact that she did not report this right away, the fact that there was no corroboration, the fact that these were people who were at least acquainted with each other." He also noted that there was no medical examination of the woman directly after the night in question.
Investigators said the only piece of physical evidence in the case was a semen-stained dress that was neither torn nor ripped. Tests showed a high likelihood that the semen came from Gooden. No physical evidence appeared to link Mr. Coleman or Mr. Boston to the woman, investigators said today.
The woman, who is 31 and lives in Manhattan, told the police that she met Mr. Gooden, Mr. Boston and Mr. Coleman by chance in a popular nightclub in nearby Jupiter, Fla. on March 29, 1991.
The woman was a seasonal resident in the area, police said. It was after giving Mr. Gooden a ride to his rented house in Port St. Lucie that she said she was pushed into a bedroom by Mr. Gooden and raped by him and by Mr. Boston and Mr. Coleman, who were already in the house when she and Mr. Gooden arrived.
At one point, the woman told police, one of the players offered her an autographed picture of himself in some apparent compensation for sex.
The woman told police that after she had been raped repeatedly in the early morning hours of March 30, 1991, she showered and made the bed before leaving the Gooden house.
Back in New York, four days passed before she said she realized what had happened, said Mr. Colton. It was then, he said, that she first contacted the Port St. Lucie police, although she did not leave her name or identify the players. Almost a year would pass before she formally filed a complaint of rape on March 3. Hard to Explain, Says Colton
"I can't explain that she did not realize that she was a victim," Mr. Colton said during a 30-minute news conference held in his office in Fort Pierce. He said it was not unusual for sexual-assault victims to have the realization of the assault "dawn" on them slowly.
Officials of the Port St. Lucie Police Department and Mr. Colton and members of his staff dodged the question of whether they thought a crime had actually been committed.
Police records indicate that the police gave the woman a computer voice-stress test to help them determine whether she was being truthful in her rape allegations.
Mr. Morgan and Mr. Colton said the test, which is not admissible in court, did show some "deceptions" in testimony to investigators. They cautioned that neither her stress test nor the polygraph-test results that the players voluntarily submitted to police played a major role in reaching a decision in the case. File Is Released
The 450-page file in the case was made public today under Florida law. The files reveal that police interviewed more than two-dozen witnesses, including Met pitcher David Cone and former Met pitcher Ron Darling.
Both the woman and Mr. Cone told police they had dated each other last spring. The woman, in a handwritten statement she gave to police, said she had gone to the Mets' spring training complex not long after the incident to see Mr. Cone pitch. She said that during the game both Mr. Coleman and Mr. Boston waved to her and that she reluctantly waved back.
Mr. Cone told police that he later learned from Mr. Darling that the woman was charging that she had been raped. Mr. Cone said that he never spoke to his three teammates about her allegations.
7 comments:
Let's Go Mets!
That's what she said.
We're there at least three runs?
You've got to admire a girl who makes the bed after a gang bang.
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