She described in graphic detail how the cop threatened to shoot her with his service revolver if she resisted.
She told the court how he violated her repeatedly on a raw, wooden table.
She said she knew for sure it was rape because she begged him not to — and because “it hurt.”
But a Manhattan jury made up of highly educated professionals refused to convict Officer Michael Pena of rape for a startling reason — the victim could not recall the color of a car parked by the courtyard where she was forced to her knees, sources told The Daily News Thursday.
“If she doesn’t remember these details, how does she know she was penetrated,” one of the holdouts reportedly said, according to sources.
The color was blue.
The unidentified male juror was one of a troika of jurors led by a meddling Manhattan lawyer named Lloyd Constantine, whose insistence on focusing “on really odd points” deadlocked the jury, the sources said.
Their refusal to budge robbed a 25-year-old Bronx schoolteacher of complete justice — and outraged other rape victims and their advocates.
“This woman was fighting for her life against an armed assailant who was subjecting her to the worst thing you can do to a living victim,” said Linda Fairstein, former chief of the Manhattan district attorney’s sex crimes unit.
“Whether or not she noticed a car is so unimportant in the scheme of what she did know.”
Seemona Sumasar, a Queens businesswoman who was framed for armed robbery after she accused her ex-boyfriend of attacking her, said verdicts like this one scare other rape victims into silence.
“My heart goes out to her,” said Sumasar, 36. “I know what it feels like.”
Word that Constantine and two other jurors — one of them a woman — scuttled a possible rape conviction came from an outraged juror who dished about the deliberations to prosecutors, sources said.
His name was not divulged. But his account shed some light on why a jury, which was presented with so much evidence that a rape occurred, convicted Pena just on the six assault counts of sodomizing the woman.
There were no slouches on the eight-man, four-woman jury.
In addition to Constantine, who was once an adviser to disgraced ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer, there were three other lawyers, a lawyer-turnedstylist, a therapist, a financial analyst, an electrical engineer, a retail manager and a special education teacher.
The professions of the other two jurors — one of them a retiree — were not known.
Constantine, who threw the trial into chaos earlier when it was revealed he had played tennis with Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr., could not be reached for comment.
But in earlier remarks, the well-connected lawyer refused to discuss the deliberations and added, “There is no law that says a jury has to reach a verdict.”
Prosecutors are now looking into the possible perjury charges against Constantine for failing to reveal he knows Vance socially — an admission that most likely would have gotten him bounced from the panel.
“If it was an old lady who thought her neighbor was the DA, that’s one thing,” an angry prosecutor said. “But this guy is a lawyer.”
Fairstein said Vance’s case against Pena was “very strong” and called the holdouts’ reported nitpicking “a very bizarre reaction.”
The fact the jury convicted Pena of sexual assault “speaks to the case and to the facts and the lack of confusion of the victim,” she said. “You have a very credible witness who is believed about everything else.”
Pena, 27, who was fired by the NYPD after his convictions, attacked the woman last August in Inwood as she was waiting for her ride to school.
He admitted, via his lawyer, to assaulting and violating the teacher. But he insisted he never penetrated her vagina.
Under New York law, there has to be proof of penetration to convict someone of rape.
In addition to the victim’s graphic testimony, prosecutors found Pena’s semen on the woman’s underwear. But they found none of Pena’s DNA inside the woman.
Fairstein said that by itself shouldn’t have scuttled any chance for a rape conviction.
“The office has tried hundreds and hundreds of cases in which there is no ejaculate in the vagina and won,” she said. “It’s not a required element of the crime to find semen.”
Prosecutors also presented eyewitness testimony from two other people: Ann Bishop, who saw “joyless sex” from her window and called 911 twice; and Gregory Matherly, who told the court he had skateboarded home when he spotted Pena and the woman — and could see from a dozen feet away the cop had penetrated her.
Another juror who spoke with The News — and asked not to be identified — said they referred to Matherly as “the skateboard witness” and didn’t find him credible.
“Everybody wished that the eyewitness who was closer was Ann Bishop,” the juror said.
“Nobody on that jury liked Michael Pena. We thought he was despicable.”
But Matherly's testimony — combined with a lack of forensic evidence inside the vagina — raised reasonable doubt about whether there was a rape, the juror said.
“It was an extremely intelligent jury,” the juror said. “We had five lawyers, an engineer and a computer genius. Things got heated at times.”
Pena could get life in prison when he is sentenced May 7.
With Barbara Ross
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...or-parked-car-article-1.1053186#ixzz1qdAZ5dha
Yessir 
What a bunch of idiots!
