The student told police that all four men raped her after she said "no" and while she was phasing in and out of consciousness.
NORTHAMPTON— A Hampshire Superior Court took under advisement Friday a motion to seek information from the Facebook page of a University of Massachusetts student who is the alleged victim of a gang rape.
The lawyer of one of the four defendants is asking for Facebook information spanning six months prior to the Oct. 13, 2012 incident and six months afterwards. Facebook has opposed the request, as has the alleged victim and the Northwestern District Attorney's office. Prosecutor Jennifer Suhl called the motion "a fishing expedition." Alfred Chamberland, who represents Adam T. Liccardi, said he would be satisfied with six months of Facebook information.
Liccardi, 18, Caleb Womack, 18, Justin A. King, 19 and Emmanuel Toffee Bile, 19, all if Pittsfield, are charged with aggravated rape. According to prosecutors, the four men went to UMass on the day of the incident despite the wishes of the woman and raped her in her Pierpont Hall dormitory room, After returning from a hockey game that night, the woman drank alcohol and smoked marijuana with the defendants prior to the alleged rape, according to reports.
The student told police that all four men raped her after she said "no" and while she was phasing in and out of consciousness. The defendants, who were not UMass students, maintain that the sex was consensual.
The Facebook motion was one of four put before Judge Richard Carey Friday. Lawyers for the defendants are also seeking disciplinary records involving the alleged victim from UMass, medical records concerning her from Cooley Dickinson Hospital and communications between the woman's lawyer and UMass. Suhl told Carey she does not oppose the medical records request. Suhl said there are no records concerning the other motions.