NYPD officers acquitted of raping woman they went to help

(CBS/AP) NEW YORK - Two New York City police officers were acquitted Thursday of raping a drunken woman they'd been called to help, with a jury convicting them only of misdemeanor official misconduct charges.

The case pitted a stunning claim of police abuse by officers Franklin Mata and Kenneth Moreno, against the officers' insistence that it simply didn't happen.

Looking exhausted but relieved as they left court, the pair said they felt vindicated by the verdict, though Moreno called it both "a lesson and a win."

"My intentions were, from the beginning, just to help her," Moreno said. He was accused of raping the woman, with Mata serving as a lookout; the two had returned to her apartment three times after an initial call to help her get home. Moreno, 43, said he did so to check on her, at her request, and to counsel her about drinking.

"I made a judgment call ... and I paid for it," he said.

Mata, 29, said he had "been innocent from day one. I'm glad everybody sees that now."

Jurors, who left court without speaking to reporters, deliberated for about six days before returning the verdict. They found each officer guilty of three official misconduct charges for returning to the woman's apartment without telling dispatchers or superiors where they were. They face possible sentences from no jail time to a total of two years behind bars at their sentencing, set for June 28.

In any event, the two - who have been suspended until a police department review after their trial - don't expect to resume police work, said Moreno's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina.

During the trial, prosecutors told a stark story of police misconduct and a perverse abuse of power. The officers acknowledged a number of missteps - including Moreno making a bogus 911 call about a sleeping vagrant as an excuse to return to her building - but said that they weren't crimes and that the rape allegation was a product of the woman's muddled memory.

"I thought she made the whole thing up," Moreno said Thursday, adding later that "she was mistaken or confused."

The officers were called to help the woman get out of a taxi on Dec. 7, 2008. A fashion product developer who's now 29, the woman had gotten very drunk while out with friends celebrating her impending promotion and move to California.

The woman testified that she passed out and awoke to being raped in her apartment. Moreno told jurors that he lay alongside her in her bed for a while but that they didn't have sex. Mata said he was napping in the living room while the others were in the bedroom.

No DNA evidence was collected in the case, and experts debated whether an internal mark found during an examination of the woman could be interpreted as a sign of rape.

Moreno said he was only trying to console and counsel the woman about drinking during his series of visits, as he shared his own struggle with alcoholism some years before, killed a cockroach in her bathroom, made plans to have breakfast with her and sang to her a verse of Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer."

On the last visit, Moreno said, he suddenly found himself fending off drunken advances from the woman.

"I told her, `There's another time for this. Not tonight.' ... I kind of had her by the shoulders, and I said, `We're not doing this,"' Moreno told jurors.

Mata, a police officer for about five years, was charged with rape under state legal principles that hold an alleged accessory as responsible for a crime as the main defendant.