The Crime That Tarnished a Town

New Bedford's notorious gang-rape case goes to trial

"I turned, and I saw a man standing there. He had beady eyes. He was grubby looking. He was grabbing the back of my coat. I looked at him and said, 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' and proceeded forward ... II started kicking and screaming, I lost my shoe. . . They dragged me over the pool table. . . I was screaming, begging for help. He got on top of me--the first guy--and had intercourse."

The slight, dark-haired woman, wearing a brick-red dress, spoke in the broad, flat tones of southeastern Massachusetts, recounting with almost clinical detachment her recollections of being gang-raped on a tavern pool table in New Bedford a year earlier. Her testimony last week came on the second day in the trial of her six accused attackers, all charged with aggravated rape, a crime that carries a possible life sentence. It was the first time the 22-year-old woman, whose identity has been protected at the urging of Superior Court Judge William G. Young, had spoken in public about her ordeal, which drew nationwide attention as a singularly ugly example of the growing problem of sexual violence.

The young woman testified that she had spent much of last March 6 celebrating her older daughter's third birthday, leaving home shortly after 9 p.m. to buy a pack of cigarettes. Finding two stores closed, she headed for Big Dan's Tavern, a neighborhood drinking joint in New Bedford's North End that has since gone out of business. Big Dan's had a reputation for attracting rowdies. After buying her cigarettes, she struck up a conversation over a drink with the only other woman in the bar. That woman then left, said the victim, and she was getting ready to do the same when she was grabbed from behind. The attack lasted an hour and a half.

All six of the defendants are resident aliens of Portuguese descent. Some speak English only haltingly, and they wear earphones to hear a Portuguese translation of the proceedings. Their background has tugged hard at the seams of ethnic tranquillity in New Bedford, a onetime whaling capital and mill town that in recent years had fallen on difficult times. Portuguese Americans, who make up more than half of the population of 98,000, have played a major part in rejuvenating the local fishing industry. But following the attack, anti-Portuguese slurs popped up on local radio call-in shows, as well as in countless private conversations.

Portuguese neighborhood leaders were quick to point out that not only the defendants but also the victim, the chief investigator and the district attorney in the case share a Portuguese background. But the damage was undeniable. "It's some kind of prejudice, which isn't on the surface, but it's there," says Manuel Ferreira, editor of the weekly Portuguese Times.

In an unusual legal maneuver, the state is trying the six defendants in two groups, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Reason: pretrial statements made by some of the defendants could not legally be used as evidence against them if all were tried together. Prosecutors have also substantially revised original reports that numerous bar patrons witnessed and even encouraged the rape with whoops and cheers. They say that aside from the six defendants and the victim, only three people were in the bar, and that the bartender and a customer sought to call the police, but were prevented from doing so by one of the six. Despite the bystanders' efforts, said Prosecutor Raymond Veary, "this is a story without heroes." qed