Alleged victim testifies in Lynn gang rape trial

LYNN – The alleged victim of a “gang rape” that took place in a Lynn apartment in February 2008, when she was 17, took the stand Monday in the aggravated rape trial of one of the four men accused of the crime.?I remember my clothes coming off, my pants being yanked off, feeling hands on the inside of me,” the woman said. “It definitely felt like it wasn?t right, like I was being taken advantage of.”Assistant District Attorney Greg Friedholm alleged that Rafael Nino Brito, 22, and three others who were supposed to be taking the girl home after a Lynn English basketball game instead drove around the city drinking with her from a bottle of liquor before taking her to a Summer Street apartment, where they each raped and groped her.The alleged victim, now a 22-year-old mother living in Boston, took the stand as the prosecution?s first witness Monday morning, first telling of how she struggled to make friends after she moved to Salem from New York as a junior in high school. She said she eventually came to know fellow Salem High School students Harold Baltodano, whom she briefly dated, as well as Luis Arias and Brito, the man currently on trial.They had cookouts and pool parties at her house, she said.On Feb. 15, 2008, the woman took a bus from Salem to Lynn with her friend Tia Nash, stopping at Nash?s aunt?s apartment before walking to a Lynn English basketball game, she said. The alleged victim?s mother, who had not known of her plans, told her she would need to find her own way home, she said.After the game, the woman said she called friends to ask them for a ride home. She also drank “about a cup” of a mixture of Hennessey cognac and Hypnotiq liqueur Nash took from her aunt?s refrigerator, she said. Then she called Baltonado, who agreed to give her a ride home when he got off work. He showed up with Arias and Brito, and a boy she?d never met named Justin Louf, she said.?I was concerned I wasn?t told beforehand that (Baltodano) wasn?t coming alone, but I figured since it was Friday they were just going to hang out after (they dropped me off),” the victim told Friedholm.Instead of taking her home, the men drove around Lynn, stopping so Brito could pick up a bottle of “clear liquor,” and then drinking it in the car, as well as smoking marijuana. The alleged victim told Friedholm she tried some of the liquor and “attempted to try” smoking the marijuana.Then they arrived at another residence she wasn?t familiar with but would later learn belonged to Brito?s mother, the woman said. They took her to a bedroom and shut off the light.She said she couldn?t see their faces, but recognized the voices of Arias, Brito and Baltonado. They were talking in Spanish, a language she said she does not speak.?I remember something about holding my arms, and I felt my arms go over my head,” she described.Defense attorney William Martin asked the alleged victim during a tense cross-examination if she specifically remembered Brito raping her.?I couldn?t be sure it was his (hands), but I heard him speaking. It was dark, so it seems to be impossible to tell where people (were) in the room,” she told Martin.She said Brito digitally penetrated her, and then made a lewd comment about her, and she “couldn?t be sure” what else he did.Arias, 22, and Louf, 21, both of Salem, pleaded guilty on Thursday to the rape and were sentenced to state prison terms. Baltodano, 22, also of Salem, is expected to have a separate trial later this year.During his opening statements, Martin called the woman a “poor historian,” made so by “regret, embarrassment, shame and denial.”?It doesn?t mean you?re a malicious liar, but it does mean you can get some of the facts a little bit wrong,” William Martin told the jury.Martin encouraged jurors to focus on the testimony that involves Brito and to tune out any evidence against the other three men.?He didn?t do it,” Martin said. “You?ll get that from the evidence – or from the lack of evidence.”Friedholm also called Nash to the stand to