Two New York City Police Officers Acquitted of Rape

The woman had described snippets of a harrowing night in which the officers, called to help her because she was extremely intoxicated, instead abused her. They insisted no rape occurred, with one allowing only that he snuggled with her while she wore nothing but a bra.

The verdict brings to an end a criminal case that drew outrage across the city when the officers were indicted in 2009, and provides some measure of vindication for the officers, Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata.

The officers were convicted of three counts of official misconduct for entering the woman’s apartment, but the jury found them not guilty of all other charges, including burglary and falsifying business records. The Police Department said the officers were fired Thursday.

For Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, the verdict was an unsatisfying conclusion. The decision, after a trial that lasted almost two months, also comes at a critical juncture for an office that is navigating the biggest case of Mr. Vance’s brief tenure: the sexual-assault charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former International Monetary Fund managing director.

The jury’s decision also underscores the difficulty of obtaining favorable results for women who say they were sexually assaulted, and who often are subjected to scrutiny and skepticism that keep many of them from speaking out. In this case, defense lawyers pounced on the credibility of the woman because she was very drunk on the night in question and did not remember many details.

After the verdict, Officer Moreno said in front of the courthouse that his accuser was “mistaken and confused,” and that “she made the whole thing up.”

But the officer, who appeared tense and tight-faced, also said he was not angry.

“I’m glad it’s over,” he said. “It’s a lesson and a win.”

When a reporter asked Officer Moreno what he meant by lesson, his lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, interjected, saying, “Well, we’ll just leave it at that.”

Both officers could face up to a year in jail on each count when they are sentenced on June 28 before Justice Gregory Carro of State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

The case presented a formidable challenge for prosecutors: there was no DNA evidence suggesting that either officer had committed a sexual act.

The jurors, who reached their verdict on their seventh day of deliberations, left the courthouse without commenting, and most reached for comment later declined to do so.

One juror, Richard Schimenti, said there was not enough evidence to prove that a rape had occurred.

“I did think that they might have had sex, but that doesn’t mean that they did have sex,” he said. “There is nothing to substantiate this. There’s no DNA, there’s no proof in any way that they had sex.”

Mr. Schimenti said he believed the prosecution’s case was hampered by the accuser’s memory loss.

“It was very hard to make a leap to charge people with rape when the principal person in the trial didn’t remember so many things,” he said.

As the verdict was read, Officer Mata looked straight ahead, while Officer Moreno cast his eyes downward, placing his fingertips on his lips.

After the verdict was delivered, Officer Moreno’s mother, Aida Moreno-Ruiz, called a relative from her cellphone. “Hey, Freddy,” she said. “It’s over. It’s over. Not guilty.”

She said in an interview that she knew that her son was “not capable of doing something so ugly.”

“Thank God it’s over and the truth came out,” she said.

Mr. Tacopina, who tried the case along with Chad Seigel and Officer Mata’s lawyer, Edward J. Mandery, called it one of his biggest victories.

“These guys were publicly presumed guilty more so than any other case I’ve been involved in,” Mr. Tacopina said in an interview. “These guys were called ‘rape cops’ before the trial even started.”

While many people thought a conviction would be a formality, Mr. Tacopina added, “I believed in this guy and we believed in these guys since Day 1.”

Nonetheless, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Thursday that the officers would be fired immediately — up until Thursday, they had been suspended with pay.

“The guilty verdicts involved violations of the officers’ oaths of office and, as a result, warrant immediate termination,” Mr. Kelly said.

More than 35 witnesses testified at the trial, which was highlighted by combative, dramatic cross-examination between Coleen Balbert, an assistant district attorney, and the officers.

Prosecutors had accused Officer Mata, 29, of standing guard while Officer Moreno had sex with the woman. She was so sick that the officers should have called an ambulance for her, prosecutors said, while the defense argued that the woman, despite being drunk, was still walking and talking.

After initially helping the woman into her apartment, the officers were captured by surveillance cameras as they re-entered the woman’s East Village building three times.

Officer Moreno, 43, testified that he was a recovering alcoholic and had developed a rapport with the woman that night, when she confided in him that her friends were angry at her because she drank too much. The two flirted, he sang Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” to her and she actually came onto him, wearing nothing but a bra, he said. He testified that he kissed the woman on the forehead and snuggled with her in her bed, but insisted they did not have sex.

But the woman, now 29 and living in California, told a much different story of what happened on that night in December 2008.

The woman, who was drinking heavily at a Brooklyn bar to celebrate a job promotion, conceded that she had blacked out many details of the evening, although she insisted she did not have a drinking problem. Still, she testified to vivid memories of hearing police radios crackling and Velcro tearing open, of feeling her tights being rolled down, and then of being penetrated as she lay dazed, face down on her bed.

When she testified last month, the woman, who has a $57 million lawsuit pending against the city and the officers, broke down several times while on the witness stand when recalling what she said happened to her.

“I couldn’t believe that two police officers who had been called there to help me had instead raped me and left me face down in a pool of vomit in my bed to die,” she said in her testimony.

Joseph Goldstein, Anemona Hartocollis and Noah Rosenberg contributed reporting.

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Serbia Says Jailed Mladic Will Face War Crimes Trial

Serbian Government, via ReutersGeneral Ratko Mladic, center, arrived at court in Belgrade on Thursday. More Photos »

Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general held responsible for the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995, was arrested on Thursday, signaling Serbia’s intention of finally escaping the isolation it brought on itself during the Balkan wars, the bloodiest in Europe since World War II.

The Op-Ed columnist Roger Cohen recalls meeting Ratko Mladic in Belgrade in 1992.

Ratko Mladic, center, observed the positions of Bosnian government forces in Gorazde in 1994. More Photos »

The capture of the former general removes a major obstacle to Serbia’s becoming a member of the European Union, which had insisted that Mr. Mladic be apprehended and turned over for trial in an international court before the country could get on track to join the 27-nation union.

President Boris Tadic of Serbia gave few details in announcing the arrest but promised that Mr. Mladic would be turned over for trial at The Hague within days. “I think today we finished a difficult period in our recent history,” he said. For Europeans, buffeted by financial crises, the arrest of their most wanted war crime suspect has a resonance on the magnitude of the killing of Osama bin Laden for Americans. It also amounts to a significant diplomatic victory, suggesting that the incentive of membership in the world’s biggest trading bloc remains a crucial foreign policy tool in the post-cold war world.

Mr. Mladic had been at large for 15 years, and many European diplomats argued that Serbian officials could have arrested him long ago if they felt that the benefits of opening the door wider to the West outweighed appeals to virulent nationalism among some Serbs, who still regard Mr. Mladic as a hero.

Mr. Mladic was captured in the farming town of Lazarevo north of Belgrade after the authorities received a tip that a man resembling him was residing there. Serbia’s interior minister, Ivica Dacic, said that Mr. Mladic had been found with his own expired identification card and an old military book. Some Serbian news reports said he had been living under the name of Milorad Komadic and had labored as a construction worker. But the Interior Ministry said Thursday that it did not have evidence suggesting he had taken on a false identity.

The massacre at Srebrenica was the worst ethnically motivated mass murder on the European continent since World War II. Mr. Mladic was also accused of war crimes for the three-and-a-half-year siege of Sarajevo, in which 10,000 people died, including 3,500 children.

While close associates had predicted that Mr. Mladic would sooner kill himself than face capture, Serbian news media reported that he was alone at the time of his arrest and had two pistols with him that he made no attempt to use. The police said he did not resist arrest. Witnesses said he appeared disoriented and tired, and that one of his hands appeared to be paralyzed, possibly because of a stroke.

Many of the 27 members of the European Union had been in favor of rewarding Belgrade for its recent tilt toward Europe and the United States by advancing its move toward membership in the bloc. But some, especially the Netherlands, had insisted that as long as Mr. Mladic remained free, Serbia could not join the union.

Mr. Mladic’s crimes remained an emotional issue for the Dutch, whose peacekeepers were overrun at Srebrenica, allowing Mr. Mladic’s soldiers to mow down men and boys, their hands tied behind their backs.

“His arrest gives a strong signal to the world that anyone accused of the worst crimes can be brought to justice,” said Serge Brammertz, the prosecutor for the United Nations-based war crimes tribunal in The Hague. He said international pressure to block Serbia’s entry into the European Union was a vital prod that had precipitated the arrest. According to B92, the independent Serbian broadcasting company, residents in Lazarevo said that they were unaware that Mr. Mladic was living among them, but had spotted the police early Thursday at a house reportedly belonging to Mr. Mladic’s relatives. Serbian analysts said Lazarevo had had a large population of Bosnian Serbs since World War II, some of whom would have been sympathetic to Mr. Mladic. They said he had lived in the village for two months.

“Extradition is happening,” President Tadic said, referring to The Hague. “This is the end of the search for Mladic. It’s not the end of the search for all those who helped Mladic and others to hide and whether people from the government were involved.”

Dan Bilefsky reported from New York, and Doreen Carvajal from Paris. Marlise Simons contributed reporting from Paris, and David Rohde from New York.

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The Caucus: Romney to Make It Official Next Week

9:03 p.m. | Updated DES MOINES – Former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts intends to formally declare his bid for the Republican presidential nomination next week in New Hampshire.

Mr. Romney, who formed an exploratory campaign last month and has been aggressively raising money across the country, will make his announcement next Thursday at the Bittersweet Farm in Stratham, N.H., a campaign spokeswoman said. The site underscores the importance that New Hampshire, which holds the first primary of the 2012 campaign, will play in his strategy.

Mr. Romney, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination for the second time, is also competing in other states. He is making his first visit on Friday to Iowa, whose caucuses open the nominating contest early next year.

Mr. Romney, 64, is seeking to shape his presidential campaign around themes of building the economy and restoring jobs. He argues that his business background makes him the strongest nominee to take on President Obama in the general election next year.

Yet before he can challenge Mr. Obama, Mr. Romney must navigate the politics of the Republican nominating contest. He has been sharply criticized by many influential voices in the party over the health care plan he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts, which many Republicans believe looks distressingly similar to the federal law signed last year by Mr. Obama.

In his second bid for the Republican nomination, Mr. Romney is taking a different approach, adopting a low-key style steeped in discipline. He has held only a handful of public events in recent months.

Mr. Romney did not attend the first Republican debate earlier this month in South Carolina. But party officials expect him to be on stage for the second debate on June 13 in New Hampshire.

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News Analysis: As Goal Shifts in Libya, Time Constrains NATO

But if toppling Colonel Qaddafi is now the more explicit goal, Mr. Obama’s European trip this week has highlighted significant tensions over how much time the NATO allies have to finish a job that is now in its third month.

Mr. Obama has urged strategic patience, expressing confidence that over time the combination of bombing, sanctions and import cutoffs will force Colonel Qaddafi from power. “Time is working against Qaddafi,” Mr. Obama said on Wednesday at a news conference in London with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain.

But in Europe and in Libya, patience is calculated differently. Many countries are struggling with the rapid pace of operations. Some, like Norway, have already said they will sharply reduce their forces beginning next month. According to NATO officials, Colonel Qaddafi has a calculation of his own: facing a possible indictment by the International Criminal Court, he may soon have few places to go and little to lose by waiting out NATO and betting that European public opinion will tire of the bombing campaign and its costs.

In interviews in Washington, at NATO headquarters in Brussels and in the alliance’s southern command center in Naples, Italy, officials have described a new strategy to intensify the pressure — and drive out Colonel Qaddafi, a goal that officials now privately acknowledge extends beyond the boundaries of the United Nations mandate to protect civilians.

This week they are intensifying attacks on government targets in Tripoli, the Libyan capital. They plan to step up the effort even more this week, with the arrival of a dozen French and four British attack helicopters that can hit targets more precisely in and around Tripoli, but are also more vulnerable to ground fire.

“The real challenge is public opinion in Europe and the nations’ patience,” said one senior NATO officer in Naples who was not authorized to speak publicly. “They’d like the war to be over, and to have it done properly with no allied casualties or collateral damage to civilians.”

Mr. Obama, however, has taken a gradualist approach that is based on America’s bitter lessons in Iraq. From the start, he has declined to commit ground troops, and quickly handed off the lead in combat operations to other NATO allies, a move widely seen in the United States and Europe as an effort to avoid “owning” a war in a nation the United States does not consider strategically vital. White House officials have also said that Mr. Obama was acutely sensitive to not leading a conflict in a third Muslim nation, while Americans are still withdrawing from Iraq and deeply engaged in Afghanistan.

But Mr. Obama’s description of the objectives has shifted. In a speech to the nation in late March, he described the effort as simply one of protecting civilians, and the White House denied that ousting Colonel Qaddafi was critical to that effort. “Broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake,” he said. While sporadic attacks on civilians continue, the United States and its allies have largely achieved that objective, NATO and American officials contend. The rebel-held ground in eastern Libya is secure, and rebel forces aided by allied air power have pushed back loyalist Qaddafi forces from the contested port city of Misurata.

But Mr. Obama suggested on Wednesday that the objective had broadened. “The goal is to make sure that the Libyan people can make a determination about how they want to proceed, and that they’ll be finally free of 40 years of tyranny and they can start creating the institutions required for self-determination.” That is parallel to the objective the United States set in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003.

In Europe, however, the tension is over how long that process will take, and how long the NATO nations now leading the attacks are willing to sustain the effort.

The helicopter deployments reflect the concerns of Britain and France, in particular, that an extended, grind-it-out campaign could lose NATO partners and public opinion, so the campaign needs to be escalated, even if that means putting the helicopters within range of Libyan shoulder-fired missiles.

NATO officials express greater confidence than ever that Colonel Qaddafi is unable to direct his forces, relying on couriers in some cases to relay strategic and operational guidance. The intensifying air campaign is driving him further underground; he has made only one radio address and one soundless television appearance in the past week or so.

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