Trusted friend gave her strange-tasting drinks repeatedly, woman testifies
Complainant in date-rape drug case outlines several incidents that left her blacked out
She didn’t watch her friend open the drinks he handed to her, she told the court. She didn’t think she had to.
“He was . . . someone I trusted. Someone I felt able to let my guard down around,” the 27-year-old woman testified Tuesday before a jury.
Instead, the Crown alleges, her friend of more than a decade drugged her three times in 2014.
On the third occasion, she testified, she woke up to find her friend lying in bed next to her masturbating while putting his hand under her pants and underwear.
Duilio Franchino, 29, faces three counts of administering a noxious substance, one count of administering a stupefying drug with the intent to commit sexual assault and one count of sexual assault.
He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. The complainant’s identity is protected by a publication ban.
In her opening overview of the evidence she expects the jury will hear, Crown prosecutor Danielle Carbonneau said police seized a wine glass, water glass and bottle of wine from the complainant’s apartment.
The wine, a Girl’s Night Out rosé, contained a “a very large and dangerous amount of GHB,” she said.
GHB is commonly known as a date-rape drug.
GHB was also found in the wine glass and water glass, Carbonneau told the jury.
On the night of the first alleged drugging in February 2014, the complainant said, Franchino came over to hang out while she finished packing to move the next day. He brought beer for himself and Caesars for her, she said.
He passed her an already open bottle as she packed and noticed that it tasted saltier than usual, she said.
He seemed to be impatient with how long she was taking to finish her first drink, she said. When she was done he handed her another as she packed her kitchenware, she said. She has no memory of what happened after she’d had a little bit of the second, she said.
She woke at 4 a.m. on her bed, fully clothed and feeling ill, she said.
Her kitchen stuff remained unpacked, delaying the move to later in the day.
She said Franchino told her she’d had several drinks and passed out.
In the next incident, in March, she testified, she and Franchino were drinking beer in cans he’d brought over. Hers tasted “awful,” she said, describing the flavour as “salty and perfumy.”
Franchino suggested the bad taste was because she’d nursed the beer for so long, she said. He opened her a new beer but, bizarrely, poured it into her half-finished can of beer so they were mixed.
After a few more sips, she said, she began to feel woozy and disoriented.
“It was like my brain was going faster than my mouth could work, and my mouth was going faster than my brain could work,” she testified, through tears.
Then she began to vomit, she said. Franchino brought her a glass of water, but it had the same salty taste so she only had a few sips.
She blacked out again, she said, and when she woke the next morning in bed she noticed her pants were loose and her fly was undone. She still felt violently ill.
The next time she and Franchino had drinks at her apartment, her roommate joined them. She had a few drinks and went to sleep normally.
On April 17, Franchino came over again, the woman told the court.
This time she’d asked him to bring wine. She didn’t watch as he poured her a very large glass, but when she tasted it, it had the salty and perfumy taste that turned her stomach, she said.
As before, she began to feel woozy and nauseous. She told Franchino she needed to lie down for a bit and that if he wanted to leave he should wake her so she could lock up behind him, she said. She was woken by a bouncing motion on the bed, she testified, then felt a hand on her side. The hand then slid into her pants and she saw Franchino lying on the bed next to her masturbating, she said.
She yelled: “What are you doing?” she testified. He said nothing, but got up and left. The woman said she remained sitting on her bed, stunned, before trying to contact her roommate and another friend.
She contacted police the following day, she said.
She told the jury she didn’t make connections between the drinks and their strange taste until after the alleged sexual assault.
“My gut instinct was screaming at me from inside that something might have been wrong all this time.”
The trial continues.