The explosive trial of two city cops charged with raping a drunken East Village woman they were helping home may hinge on how the jury interprets one officer's stunning words.
Jury selection in the trial of Officers Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata is set to begin Monday, and the key may be a taped conversation in which Moreno appears to admit committing the heinous assault.
"Did you use a condom?" the woman asked him outside his police precinct in a conversation caught on a wire she wore for the Manhattan district attorney's office.
"Yes, yes I did," Moreno told her, according to the taped conversation that was played in court last month.
The revelation flew in the face of staunch denials by Moreno and Mata that they assaulted the woman in 2008 after helping her to her E. 13th St. apartment.
The damning tape appears to give prosecutors the upper hand in what had been a circumstantial case with no forensic evidence and the victim's recollection hazy at best.
"That admission is the most powerful piece of proof - it is the decider," said one veteran criminal defense attorney.
Defense lawyers argue that Moreno, a 19-year NYPD vet, was only trying to calm the woman down after she threatened to go into the precinct and "make a scene."
The case was recently delayed after prosecutors admitted failing to show other key evidence to the original grand jury. This forced prosecutors to resubmit the case to a second grand jury. While charges were added, the new evidence remains a secret. The defense has said it is favorable to the officers' case.
Prosecutors allege that Moreno, 43, had sex with the woman while Mata, 27, acted as a lookout. The suspended cops were called to her home in December 2008 after she was unable to get out of a taxi. Surveillance footage from a nearby bar showed the cops helping her into the building and leaving, but then returning two times.
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