Jury requests read-back in rape trial

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TRENTON -- Jurors considering the rape charges against accused "Cadwalader Park Rapist" Paul Burke called for read-backs yesterday of the testimony of two of the four of his alleged victims.


Burke, 41, of Levittown, Pa., sat in court yesterday in traditional lime green shirt and red tie as the court stenographer reread the entire testimony of the women he allegedly raped on April 4, 2002 and May 2, 2003.



The jury, who deliberated briefly before making the request for the read-back, and for a short time yesterday afternoon, also asked Mercer County Superior Court Judge Maryann Bielamowicz to explain the law behind kidnapping.

Burke is charged with four counts of first-degree aggravated sexual assault, four counts of kidnapping and one count of robbery.

The woman in the alleged April 4, 2002 assault, the first victim Burke is accused of raping, testified Burke pulled her into his burgundy Buick as she waited for the bus stop on Stuyvesant Avenue.

High on PCP, the woman said she was blinded by the car’s head lights when Burke allegedly called out to her.

When the lights were turned off she noticed Burke had a sign that read "Fear This!" affixed to his front bumper, testimony revealed.

She testified Burke raped her by a shed behind the Joyce Kilmer Elementary School.

Money was discussed during the May 2, 2003 incident, where Burke allegedly offered a Trenton women a ride as she walked down Pennington Avenue.

She missed her connecting bus from her job in Lawrence and had no choice but to make the half hour walk home.

But the 19 year old testified it was Burke who offered her $150 to keep quiet after allegedly twisting her arm back and dragging her to the backstop of the park’s baseball field to be raped, the witness testified.

The two incidents for which the jury asked the read-back were the same incidents Burke’s attorney Tom Fielding argued were the most suspicious of the attacks.

In his closing arguments Thursday, Fielding said the four women only reported the rapes because Burke "duped" them into believing he was going to pay them for the sex and kicked them to the curb before he had a chance to pay up.

Fielding noted the woman in the May 2 attack admitted that she talked in the car with Burke for about an hour, never said where she lived and rode around with his for quite before traveling over the park.

DNA linked Burke to those rapes and the assaults on women Sept. 28, 2002 and May 13, 2003, testimony revealed.

DNA results also cleared Ryan Rose, of Trenton, of the rapes, after he was wrongfully arrested.

After deliberating in the afternoon the jury was sent home and was told to return Monday to continue the process.



©The Trentonian 2005