Hossu Rape Case Goes into Fourth Day
By David Propper and Janine Bowen
In the fourth day of the Alexandru Hossu rape trial, a recorded phone conversation between the accuser and Hossu was played for the jury, in which Hossu categorically denied assaulting her.
The conversation was recorded by the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office and took place on March 13, 2013. During the phone call, which lasted more than ten minutes and played in court by the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office prosecuting the case, the accuser confronted Hossu about the assault, but the 36-year-old defendant denied any wrongdoing.
When the alleged victim, who was 13-years-old at the time of the alleged attack in 2010, brought up being assaulted by Hossu, he immediately and emphatically refuted her accusation.
“What are you talking about,” he said over the recording. “I never touched you.”
“That’s ridiculous, why would you say something like that,” he told the victim, who was a high school sophomore at the time of the controlled phone conversation suggested by authorities.
The victim went into detail of the alleged attack for Hossu, stating how he came into her room, and thought he could help her with her homework. When she said she told Hossu he couldn’t help, it led to the attack, the recording played. She also said over the phone she was “pretty sure” Hossu was intoxicated at the time.
Hossu was arrested in March 2013 and charged with two counts each of 1st degree rape and 2nd degree rape and one count of endangering the welfare of a minor. Hossu, 36, was the former live-in personal trainer of Putnam County District Attorney Adam Levy. Levy recused his office from the prosecution, which is why Westchester is handling the case.
He is the former boyfriend of the victim’s mother.
Earlier in the day, the alleged victim described the “excruciating pain” she was left in after Hossu allegedly raped her twice for more than three hours.
She said she felt pain “between her legs” and saw blood all over her bed. She could only let out screeches while the rape occurred because his hands were apparently around her neck, according to her testimony.
She also said the rape occurred from about 7 p.m. until 10:37 p.m.
After he was done, she claims Hossu threatened.
“He said, ‘If you tell anybody, I’ll f-cking kill you,’” she testified he told her.
The accuser eventually went into her mother’s bedroom, woke her up and told her, “Alex raped me.”
The police weren’t called that night. The mother, an alcoholic and drug addict at the time of the attack, died of a drug overdose in 2012.
Authorities were first told on March 11, 2013, when the alleged victim told police after her aunt, who is her legal guardian, pushed her to.
The previous day, Judge Lester Adler denied the defense’s request for a mistrial. Defense lawyers called for the mistrial Monday morning, after alleging that the District Attorney’s Office failed to turn over a 20-minute video featuring statements from alleged victim’s aunt.
Judge Adler concluded that, although the prosecutors waited a day to deliver the video to the defense, both parties were still afforded sufficient time to view the recording for use in examination of the aunt as a witness and both were affected in a negative way by the untimely discovery of the video statement. Furthermore, he stated that the application for a mistrial, as submitted by the defense, did not demonstrate sufficient evidence of prejudice.
Back to Wednesday, the defense for Hossu only started their cross examination of the alleged victim and it is expected to continue Thursday morning.
