Sunday, September 09, 2007

Judge doubts credibility of victim's recantation

A 24-year-old Lowell, Mass., woman swore to tell the truth, and then testified Friday that Severine Wamala never touched her....

"It never happened," she said.

Later Friday afternoon, however, jurors watched a videotape in which the same woman told Nashua Police Detective Michael Moushegian that Wamala had sexually assaulted her on the very first day she arrived in the United States from her native Uganda, and repeatedly afterward in Lowell and later in Nashua....

She testified that Wamala never did anything more than hug her to show affection, and she falsely accused him of rape because Moushegian badgered and intimidated her into saying so....

When Assistant County Attorney Patricia LaFrance asked the woman to recount what she had told Moushegian during an interview last year, the woman said repeatedly that she couldn’t remember details of what she said about the alleged abuse....

At one point, however, when LaFrance asked the woman where Wamala had assaulted her, she answered, "in the bathroom."

Wamala’s lawyers immediately interrupted with an objection and LaFrance was unable to immediately follow up.

Judge Robert Lynn later mentioned the incident while discussing with lawyers what other evidence ought to be allowed and made clear (while the jury was out of the room) that he thought the woman was lying.

“It would be obvious to anyone that not only was her credibility severely impeached,” Lynn said, then added, the woman’s answer to the question suggested something did happen between her and Wamala in a bathroom.

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