Alleged rape victim admits lying to police

Deepa Bharath

An 18-year-old girl reportedly gang-raped by three teenagers nearly

two years ago admitted to the defense during cross-examination on

Tuesday that she lied to her parents many times because she could get

away with it and to the police because she was scared.

The girl was 16 when Greg Haidl, son of Orange County Assistant

Sheriff Don Haidl, Kyle Nachreiner and Keith Spann allegedly drugged

her, raped her in the Haidls’ Corona del Mar home and assaulted her

with various objects.

The girl has been on the stand since May 18. Haidl’s attorney,

Joseph Cavallo, completed his two-day cross-examination on Tuesday

making way for Nachreiner’s attorney, John Barnett, who asked why she

wasn’t truthful to her parents and the detectives who questioned her

days after the incident.

Barnett asked if she told her parents where she was the night of

July 5 right after her alibi failed and they had caught her

red-handed at a friend’s house.

“I didn’t tell them everything because I didn’t feel like they

needed to know right then,” she said.

The defense attorney went on to question the girl about her

“image” among her friends and parents. The girl said she had been

made an outcast by her friends after the incident.

She said she had sex with Greg Haidl despite knowing he was her

friend’s boyfriend and that it was wrong.

“I knew having sex with him was wrong, but I wanted to,” she said.

She said her parents trusted her so much that it was easy for her

to get away with all the lies.

“It was easy to lie because I never got caught,” the girl said

calmly.

Barnett also asked why she lied to detectives on July 9, 2002,

about her drinking.

The girl told police then that she was not drunk but “tipsy” on

the night of July 4 when she reportedly had sex with both Haidl and

Spann. Defense attorneys say she also had sex with Nachreiner that

night, in the swimming pool only 10 minutes after she met him for the

first time.

The girl told Barnett she had flirted with Nachreiner, joked with

him and teased him, but never had sex with him.

Barnett asked if she was still joking when sitting naked on

Nachreiner’s lap as the teenager was visibly excited.

“Yes,” she replied.

The girl testified during the trial that she was drunk that night

and had taken 10 swigs of Bacardi and had some tequila. But the

Bacardi was only part of the reason she acted “inappropriately” with

Nachreiner, she said.

“What was the other part?” Barnett asked.

“Because I was being stupid,” she said.

The girl said she lied to the police about her drinking on July 4

and barely mentioned her encounter with Nachreiner in the pool

because she wanted to “downplay July 4.”

“I didn’t know how it would play into what happened on the 5th,”

she said.

The girl said her lie didn’t bother her during the interview with

detectives, but she was upset with herself afterward.

Barnett asked why she told police she didn’t remember what

happened July 5, the night of the alleged rape. He asked if she had

watched television programs about date rape or if she knew that women

who were given a date-rape drug sometimes didn’t remember the

horrible things that had happened to them while under the influence

of the drug.

“I told [police] I had a lack of memory because that was the

truth,” the girl told Barnett.

The girl also maintained she had no knowledge that Spann was

videotaping the two of them having sex on June 30, 2002.

Barnett asked if she saw the video two days later and remarked to

her friends: “Look, I’m a porn star.”

“No,” the girl replied.

She said she told Haidl to erase the tape and he told her he

would. She said Spann did as he was told when she asked him to stop

recording.

“And I thought he would change,” she said. “I really liked him.”

Defense attorneys completed their cross-examination of the girl

late Tuesday afternoon.

The prosecution is expected to rest its case today. The judge is

also scheduled to hear the defense’s motion for mistrial.

One of Haidl’s attorneys, Pete Scalisi, said it is not the

defense’s burden to prove whether the girl was unconscious during the

incident.

“That’s the prosecution’s burden,” he said. “The government must

prove that she was intoxicated to the extent where she was unable to

give consent. The real issue in this case is whether the boys had

reason to believe there was consent.”

The girl, wearing a powder-blue suit, was calm for the most part

Tuesday but snapped at Cavallo when he asked if she was on the stand

testifying to make her father happy.

“I’m here because these three boys need to go to jail,” she said.

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

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