Accuser Faces Accused in Rape Trial
In a dramatic day of testimony in the rape trial of Jason Lee, accuser and accused faced each other for the first time in almost 20 months, as the trial before acting Supreme Court Justice Barbara Kahn moved into its fourth day.
In the packed courtroom on Tuesday, the woman, known only as D.D., gave a graphic and tearful description of the alleged attack in the early morning of Aug. 20, 2013, at an East Hampton house Mr. Lee had rented for the month with his wife, who was in Manhattan at the time.
Mr. Lee’s attorneys have claimed that the sex was consensual and on cross-examination after D.D.’s direct testimony, pointed to inconsistencies between what she said on the witness stand and statements she gave to East Hampton Town Police and a grand jury shortly after the alleged 2013 attack.
On Tuesday, D.D. said she had gone into a downstairs bathroom at 1 Clover Leaf Lane to change back into her peach-colored dress, which she taken off earlier to go swimming in her underwear in the backyard pool.
She became aware, she said in court, that Mr. Lee, who was naked, was outside the bathroom door. She said he pushed his way in. She tried to stop him by pressing against the door, but he overwhelmed her, she said, knocking her backwards and injuring her.
Asked by Ms. Kelly what happened next, D.D. paused for a long time, and then said, "He was on top of me." She said she called for her friend, Fiona, but that Mr. Lee then put the back of his hand over her mouth and said, twice, " 'Shut the fuck up.' "
He then pulled up her dress, pulled down her panties, and began intercourse, she said.
She struggled to free herself, she said. "With every ounce of strength inside of me," she said, and managed to knee Mr. Lee in the groin.
The whole attack took two or three minutes, she said.
Mr. Lee then left the bathroom, D.D. said. She took the dress back off, she said, "Because it was disgusting."
The dress, according to the prosecution, then disappeared until an investigator working for Mr. Lee's defense team delivered it and a pair of underwear to the district attorney's office in a sealed box on March 12, 2014.
During cross-examination, Andrew Lankler, one of Mr. Lee’s attorneys, began by showing D.D. several photographs, inluding "selfies," taken that night of herself, her friends, and Mr. Lee. She, her brother, and some friends had just met Mr. Lee and a friend of his at Georgica, a Wainscott restaurant and nightspot. In two pictures, Mr. Lee had his arm around her. In response, she said that she and her friends found Mr. Lee and Mr. Duncan's attention to them "funny," because they were so much older than the women.
The group drank and partied until closing time, when D.D., Fiona, and a few others went to Mr. Lee's rented house.
Mr. Lankler had D.D. read the statement she gave to police about where she got the clothing she was wearing after she left the pool, and read to her from the grand jury testimony. He did the same for her account of putting the peach dress back on, pointing out the differences between her current testimony and what she had said previously.
He also pressed her on what happened when Mr. Lee had stripped all his clothing off, before the alleged attack. He asked if Mr. Lee had gotten into the pool with D.D. and Fiona. Fiona testified he had; D.D. said he had not.
Mr. Lankler questioned D.D.'s claim that she had shouted for her friend Fiona's help, asking her how loud she had shouted, until the prosecution objected.
D.D. began crying, and Mr. Lankler asked if she needed time. "No, I'm fine," she replied.
Ms. Kelly asked D.D. in a redirect question if she had ever told her parents what had happened. "No," she answered. "Nobody at home knows what happened."