Deepa BharathSANTA ANA -- Prosecution and defense...

Deepa Bharath

SANTA ANA -- Prosecution and defense attorneys in a Corona del Mar

gang rape case gave detailed, lurid accounts of sexual perversion and

alcohol abuse among the teenagers involved in the case during opening

statements on Monday.

Greg Haidl, son of Orange County Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl, Kyle

Nachreiner and Keith Spann are accused of raping a 16-year-old girl in the older Haidl’s Corona del Mar home in July 2002. All defendants

have pleaded not guilty and have said that the sex was consensual.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Hess told jurors that the prosecution’s

evidence “will show beyond a reasonable doubt that these three men

raped and sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl who was so

intoxicated that she couldn’t fight back or say ‘no.’”

The prosecution holds in its hand a key piece of evidence -- a

20-minute digital videotape, which reportedly captures the entire

incident. Hess said that the video, which will be played only for

jurors, will show how the men sexually assaulted the victim with

various objects, including a pool cue.

“And they danced with joy as they did it,” he said.

Defense attorneys John Barnett and Joseph Cavallo said the girl

came to Haidl’s Jade Cove home with the intention of having sex with

the defendants. She wanted to be popular among her peers and used her

body and sex to attain that popularity, the defense attorneys said.

Barnett said the girl had sex with Nachreiner in the swimming pool

at Haidl’s home 10 minutes after she met him.

“She had never seen him before,” he said.

Hess admitted that the girl had sex with Greg Haidl and Spann and

“almost had sex” in the swimming pool with Nachreiner.

“She made some bad choices in her life,” Hess said. “She partied

with friends, drank alcohol and lied to her parents about where she

was going that day.”

But she did not consent to the acts the defendants performed on

her, he said. Hess said they gave her beer, marijuana and a “mixed

drink,” which made her unconscious.

“She said the drink that Nachreiner handed to her tasted like pine

needles,” he said.

Hess said his expert witness will testify that the victim’s

statement about the mixed drink is consistent with the account of

someone who has tasted a drink laced with a date-rape drug.

Barnett said in his statement that the prosecution has no

“forensic evidence of drugs.” Experts tested the victim’s vomit and

found no evidence of drugs in it, he said.

Hess said the videotape will show jurors how the girl was

“flopping like a rag doll” in the hands of the three men who acted

like puppeteers.

“The reason we’re here today is the defendants’ own perversion and

their arrogance,” the prosecutor said. “Their arrogance to watch that

tape over and over again and ultimately their stupidity to leave the

camera at an acquaintance’s place.”

The teens left behind a camcorder with the digital tape in some

friends’ rented beachfront home in Newport, Hess said. Those friends

turned in the tape to a Pasadena police officer after watching it and

understanding that a crime had occurred, he said.

Greg Haidl liked to record his friends having sex, Hess said.

“He’s like this candid camera of teen sex,” he said. “That was his

passion. It was his hobby and he was good at it.”

On July 5, 2002, a day after the girl had partied with all three

boys, they invited her back to the Jade Cove home, Hess said.

“They targeted her and isolated her from her friends,” he said.

“They fed her alcohol and drugs.”

All three defendants had their heads down most of the time as

attorneys were making the statements. They were all clean-shaven and

dressed in white half-sleeved shirts with ties, dark-colored pants

and black shoes.

Spann’s mother and Nachreiner’s parents sat expressionless during

the session. Don Haidl held his wife’s hand as the court clerk read

out the laundry list of charges -- 24 felony counts. He took off his

glasses and wiped his face and left the room with his wife halfway

through the prosecutor’s statements.

Cavallo fleshed out a very different picture of the girl, who was

portrayed by the prosecution as a helpless victim.

He said the girl was, in fact, the “aggressor” and the “boys” were

the “targets.”

“She was a very troubled young lady who was spinning out of

control like a tornado taking everything in its path,” he said. “And

she took these three boys as well.”

The girl, who had admitted to a doctor that she drank alcohol and

used a variety of drugs at age 14, tried to “recruit” her girlfriends

to have a foursome at the Haidl home, he said.

“But all her girlfriends refused to go with her,” he said. “So she

went alone.”

The girl was excited about her anticipated encounter with the

teens and told her parents she was going to stay the night at a

friend’s place and then go to Magic Mountain the next day, he said.

She told her friends that she “wanted to be a porn star,” Cavallo

said. When Spann, the boy she was dating at the time, showed a tape

of the two of them having sex, Cavallo said she was delighted and

told her friends: “Look at me. I’m a porn star.”

Defense attorneys also stated that the tape, which prosecutors

have called their main piece of evidence, “is incomplete” and could

be missing several minutes of footage. The girl has also made

inconsistent and contradictory statements to Newport Beach police

detectives and is “not credible,” Cavallo said.

Opening statements will continue this morning. The prosecution is

also expected to play the videotape for jurors today.

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@latimes.com.