Addison is a school teacher living in New York when she becomes a victim of rape. The Special Victims Unit tries to connect the dots of the crime, leading back to a prominent family of the city. Sonny Carisi is the lead detective on her case, and th...
"This is going to be tough for you, the defense will not go easy." ADA Barba says to me after I take the seat in an empty courtroom to go over my testimony. It has been 2 weeks since my release in the hospital and 3 days since the trial started. It's a public madhouse that the media is eating up due to the political father sitting beside his injured son in the court seats, ready to put his mentally ill one away for life in a mental institution. The defense tried unsuccessfully to get the governor up on the stand but his team of lawyers easily got it dismissed. I try and flatten out my skirt with my one arm still bandaged and sit on my hand waiting to begin, "I'll start off with how you knew Jason, your past relationship together and why you were together in the city."
"Alright," I say simply, knowing that would be the easy part.
"Just be honest and you'll be fine. We'll go into the details of your rape. I'm going to ask you questions I want you to be very specific to. What he did to you, how he was behaving, how he left you. Can you do that?" He asks. I nod, assuring him I could. I've been in daily therapy since I got out of the hospital and I've been talking to my therapist about the incident pretty openly from the start. It felt good to talk to someone who doesn't judge me, or look and act like I'm damaged around them. "Now, when the defense comes up, they are going to try and convince you it wasn't him. You didn't see his face, you didn't get a look at him and that it could have been any white male in that video."
"But you have evidence." I remind him.
He holds up his hand, "yes, we do. I'm just letting you know. I'll move on from the rape to the incident in your neighbors apart--"
I interrupt him, "Mrs. Blaine's apartment." I clarify.
He adjusts his tie, "yes, Mrs. Blaine's apartment. Same routine questions you answered at the precinct. Why did you go inside, what did he say to you, why did he let you go. The defense will be harsh on this too, claiming your memory loss to the incident was convenient for you or some other deflect tactic to distract the jury. Just remain calm, stick to the facts and you'll do just fine." He waits to go on, waiting for me to confirm I understand. I nod again, and he continues, "we'll go to the incident at the hospital, the hostage situation and everything he was saying there. Is there anything you haven't told anyone yet, anything else you want to go over before we go into all the questions?" ADA Barba asks one more time.
"I told the police everything I know." I assure him.
He pulls out a paper but his phone rings and he quickly picks it up, "when did this happen? I told you to take care of it. No, fine. We'll just have 2 separate trials." He hangs up the phone and looks at me with a saddened stare, "Addison, I have some bad news."
"What?" I ask, my air getting caught in my breath
He puts a hand to his temple rubbing at it "I had an intern try to take care of a motion and well, he failed. Nothing is changed, we just have to have two separate trials. One for the rape and one for the murder and hospital attack."
I kind of gasp "what, why?"
"We have plenty of evidence for both, don't worry about it. It's all just tactics the defense lawyer is trying. Tomorrow trial is for the murder. Let's get started." He pushes my questions away and pulls at the paper from the folder and reads off the first question, "where did you meet Jason Charles?"
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