Sex accuser attacks DA
Says ‘corrupt’ in cop-rape case
The young woman who says she was raped by two NYPD detectives in Brooklyn after they arrested her has accused prosecutors of “corruption” just a week before the now ex-cops go on trial.
The 20-year-old woman, who goes by the moniker Anna Chambers online, posted a flurry of tweets over the past two days attacking the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, which is prosecuting the former detectives on rape and bribery charges.
“Your DA is trying to flip things on me and accuse me of perjuring (due) to inconsistencies I made while traumatized,” she wrote. “My state representative DAs are corrupted and are trying to defend the thin blue line."
Detectives Eddie Martins and Richard Hall arrested her on a minor drug charge at Calvert Vaux Park in Gravesend in September 2017 and then took turns raping her in a police van, she said.
Martins and Hall have said through their lawyers there was sex, but it was consensual. They resigned from the NYPD in November 2017.
Their defense lawyers have filed repeated motions calling for dismissal of the charges, claiming Chambers repeatedly changed key details in her various official interviews and depositions.
“(Prosecutors) are acutely aware, but refuse to admit, what is plainly obvious: (Chambers) deliberately lied in the grand jury and they bolstered her perjured testimony with other inaccurate evidence,” wrote lawyers Mark Bederow and Peter Guadagnino in a Jan. 7 motion.
On Thursday, at the request of prosecutors, Judge Denny Chun appointed criminal defense lawyer Michael Cibella to represent Chambers — a signal she may be vulnerable to perjury allegations.
Cibella did not return a phone ca Tuesday.
“The DA has reviewed all of her prior sworn and unsworn statements and weighed them against the other evidence,” Bederow said. “They made the determination that she needs criminal counsel, which is virtually unprecedented in a case like this. These developments speak for themselves.”
Bederow and Guadagnino on Tuesday afternoon filed a motion asking a judge to disqualify the DA's office from handling the case and turn it over to an independent special prosecutor.
“(The DA) must be disqualified due to the existence of numerous conflicts of interest,” they wrote. “Put simply, the interests of the DA and (Chambers) are now in irreconcilable conflict, which prejudices Martins' and Hall's right to a fair trial.”
In the motion, they claim that the DA's office has already “conceded” that a number of Chambers' claims were false. The motion also speculates that Cibella will “almost certainly” advise Chambers not to testify.
“We will review the motion and respond to it in court.” said a Brooklyn DA spokesman, who declined to further comment.
Over the weekend, Chambers, who has filed a $50 million lawsuit against the exdetectives, tweeted her outrage.
"They are making perjury accusations against me trying to turn s--- on little things I've said having to do nothing with the brutal rape to silence me,” she wrote.
Michael David, her lawyer in the civil case, said Chambers is frustrated with how the case is going.
"She's being attacked over this, the court appointed a lawyer to represent her, and she feels she's being victimized again,” he said. “I can understand how she feels. I hope it doesn't affect the prosecution of this case.”
David noted that the two ex-cops, when asked in a deposition in the civil lawsuit if they raped Chambers, invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to answer.
The criminal trial is slated to begin Jan. 22.