MARTINEZ, Calif. (AP) - Prosecutors laying out their case against two men charged with the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl outside a Northern California high school homecoming dance said this week that the men also helped others participate in the attack, while the girl's father testified Tuesday that someone taunted him the night of the attack using her cellphone.
Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney John Cope told jurors Tuesday the attack at Richmond High School, in which the girl was also punched, dragged, and urinated on, could have involved up to 20 men, newspapers reported.
Cope told jurors when the trial began Monday that police who were called to the high school found the girl drunk to the point of incoherence and her body scratched, bruised and almost completely nude.
Twenty-two year-old Jose Montano of Richmond and 20-year-old Marcelles Peter of Pinole are both charged with forcible rape, rape by foreign object and forced oral copulation. If convicted, they face life sentences.
Montano's attorney, Jane Elliot, said during her opening remarks Tuesday that prosecutors don't have enough evidence to convict her client.
Elliot questioned the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses and said while Montano's DNA was found on a condom wrapper and can of alcohol, his DNA was not found on the victim.
Peter's attorney, Gordon Brown, also questioned DNA evidence against his client, saying wind and police walking through the area could have compromised the scene.
"I don't think we will ever know all that happened,'' Brown said in his opening statement Monday.
The victim's father testified Tuesday that on the night of the crime, someone called him with his daughter's phone and told him that his daughter had performed well sexually.
Prosecutors elected to try the men together but with two juries because they have evidence that could be deemed inadmissible for one of them but not the other. The panels will hear most of the same testimony but will deliberate separately after sitting through separate sets of opening and closing arguments.
Montano and Peter were among six men charged in the crime. Two men are awaiting trial, and two others took plea deals.
The victim is expected to testify during the trial of Peter and Montano, although Cope said she does not remember the attack.
