Doctor: ‘I wish I was videotaping’
Podiatrist accused of rape, voyeurism tells jury ‘there are no cameras’ in house
Dr. Scott Strolla attends jury selection Sept. 5 in a Palm Beach County courtroom.
ASouth Florida podiatrist testified Thursday in his own defense against rape and voyeurism charges, insisting his entire encounter with a younger woman more than three years ago was consensual.
Dr. Scott Strolla told a sixmember Palm Beach County jury that “at no point” did his now-28-year-old accuser tell him to stopperforming sexual acts and using his phone to take naked photos of her.
Strolla said that because of the allegations, he nowwishes he had taken a video in his bedroom, or had surveillance cameras, to prove the woman is lying about being raped and violated while shewas unconscious.
“I wish Iwas videotaping sowe would not be here,” Strolla, 53, testified, later adding, “There are no cameras in my house. I wish therewere.”
Much of Strolla’s two hours of testimony contradicted statements he made to a detective hours after the woman called 911 in a panic, hiding in bushes outside his home on the Intracoastal Waterway near Palm Beach Gardens.
Earlier Thursday, the heard Strolla’s 90-minute jurors audiotaped interview with the detective from April 4, 2016, in which he denied drugging the woman, having sex with her and taking any naked pictures.
“I don’t know why I said some of those things,” Strolla told prosecutor Brianna Coakley, when asked about his previous comments. “I couldn’t tell you.”
A detective extracted the deleted photos from his phone and the imageswere shownto the jury earlier in the trial before Circuit JudgeDaliahWeiss.
The woman testified last week that she met Strolla at a Sunday brunch restaurant in West Palm Beach, and later sawhim at a club, but didn’t remember how she got to his house.
She said she graduallywoke up fromcamera flashes and the pressure of Strolla on top of her, but was too groggy to understand at first whatwas happening.
“I sensed what was going on,” she said. “I just couldn’t do anything about it. … I know I didn’t consent.”
The South Florida Sun Sentinel is not identifying the woman because of the nature of the allegations.
Strolla told the jury that after hours of flirting with each other
and her kissing him, she wanted to go back to his place.
The jury previously watched a surveillance video showing Strolla and the woman walking together along Clematis Street.
Strolla said they continued kissing and touching each other’s private parts during the car ride. Upon arriving at his place, they went right to his master suite and she strippeddown to her underwear and they “fooled around,” he said.
According to Strolla, he took photos of her because “we were having a good time” and “she was enjoying” the photo session. That proceeded to intercourse, and then he performed oral sex on her until she got calls and texts from her exboyfriend, he testified.
“Iwould absolutely say it was consensual,” Strolla told the jury of fourwomen and two men.
In the taped statement, Strolla told Detective Allison Tug by, “I have nothing to hide” and that he was surprised by the allegations considering that he’s always been a law-abiding citizen.
“I don’t even have a parking ticket in my life,” said Strolla, who has practiced medicine in West Palm Beach for the last 25 years. His record is clean, according to the Florida Department of Health.
The accuser was not a patient and the charges in the case have nothing to do with his job as a foot and ankle specialist.
Strolla is charged with two counts of sexual battery, including a penetration count on a “helpless person,” plus one count of video voyeurism that concerns the photos. These charges are altogether punishable by up to 60 years in state prison.
The jury is expected to hear closing arguments and deliberate on Friday.