Dublin firefighter rape trial: Boston judge declares mistrial after jury unable to reach verdict

Sarah Slater

The trial of Dublin firefighter Terence Crosbie, who is accused of raping an American woman in a Boston hotel room, resulted in a hung jury following 22 hours of deliberations.

Mr Crosbie (38) was in the US city with work colleagues as part of St Patrick’s Day celebrations on March 14th last year.

His trial, in which he pleads not guilty, began in the Suffolk County Courthouse in Boston on June 9th before presiding judge Sarah Weyland Ellis.

After more than 22 hours of deliberation over four days, the jury of eight men and four women were unable to reach a decision.

Judge Ellis declared a mistrial. Mr Crosbie’s next trial is due to take place on October 14th. After declaring the mistrial, Judge Ellis increased his bail from $10,000 to $50,000, declaring him a flight risk.

According to The Boston Globe, Judge Ellis added: “The state of the evidence is no longer speculative in this case."

It is alleged that on March 14th last year Mr Crosbie raped the now 29-year-old woman at the Omni Parker House, a hotel in downtown Boston. Mr Crosbie had flown to Boston from Ireland on the same day of the alleged incident with colleagues and that he was scheduled to leave the following Tuesday, March 18th.

Mr Crosbie was sharing a hotel room with a fellow firefighter, whom the victim said she had consensual sex with after meeting earlier in the Black Rose pub. They subsequently fell asleep in separate beds.

The victim alleged that she woke in the early hours of the following day to another man sexually assaulting her, and identifying him to police as the defendant.

A week ago, Mr Crosbie gave evidence in which he insisted that he had, “done nothing wrong. 100 per cent I didn’t do this. I had no physical or verbal contact with her [the plaintiff] at all.”

In evidence, the woman described waking up to someone raping her.

“What are you doing? Stop!” the woman told police she said to the man, according to a police report.

After the alleged assault, she said Crosbie followed her around the hotel room, trying to kiss her, and pushed her against the wall as she gathered her clothes to leave.

The woman said she left the room within 10 minutes of waking up.

The defence lawyer contended that Mr Crosbie did not rape the woman and that his DNA was not found on her.

The Dublin man’s defence team repeatedly asked the woman about her account of events, focusing on aspects of her story they claim changed.

Mr Crosbie has been detained at Nashua Street jail in Boston since his arrest last year. He had attempted to get on an earlier flight back to Ireland on March 15th.