FALL RIVER, Mass. -- The bartender at Big Dan's Tavern, where a woman allegedly was gang raped on a pool table while patrons cheered, testified today she 'jumped and ran' from the bar as the men tried to continue their attack.
Bartender Carlos Machado, speaking in Portuguese through a court interpreter, said one of the six defendants 'was on top of her doing piggy things.'
'When another of the men tried to take his place, she jumped and ran,' Machado said.
Assistant District Attorney Raymond Veary said he plans to subpoena a Boston Herald reporter whose jailhouse interview with defendant Victor Raposo was published in today's paper.
Veary said he wants to question reporter John Impemba, the Herald editors who reviewed his story, and editors at the New Bedford Standard-Times, where Impemba worked when he conducted the interview last August.
'We have a right to know what inconsistencies there may be between what's in the story and what's not published,' Veary said.
The published report quoted Raposo as saying the woman was drinking heavily and 'told me how cute I was' and 'kept coming on to me.'
Wednesday, in his first day on the witness stand, Machado described the attack at the New Bedford bar in March 1983 as a 'dirty thing' and said he was stopped by one of the defendants when he tried to get help for the woman.
Machado described the attack, which he said lasted for about 35 minutes. Prosecutors have estimated the alleged gang rape lasted as long as two hours.
When she came into the bar, the woman watched two of the defendants playing pool and chatted with most of the men in the tavern who clustered around her, Machado said.
At one point she 'had her arms around Victor Raposo,' another of the defendants, he told a Bristol County Superior Court jury Wednesday.
Machado said that after several drinks, the 22-year-old mother of two again headed for the bar and the six defendants, led by Daniel Silvia and Joseph Vieira, followed her.
Then, he heard 'a loud boom on the floor' and saw Vieira and Silvia were trying to tear off her jeans, Machado said.
The woman was 'on the ground, screaming and moaning,' and two other defendants -- Virgilio Medeiros and Jose 'Blondie' Medeiros, who are not related -- were pointing at her and yelling, 'Do it, do it. That's it,' the bartender testified.
Machado said he had tried to call police on a barroom telephone, but defendant Virgilio Medeiros blocked his exit from the horseshoe-shaped bar saying: 'Where are you going? You're not going anywhere.'
Machado said he gave a customer a dime to phone for help but the man said he was afraid of the alleged attackers and never made the call.
Virgilio Medeiros and Jose Medeiros stood in a corner of the tavern 'looking at this dirty thing,' Machado said, referring to the attack.
Silvia and Vieira dragged the woman across the barroom floor and threw her onto a pool table, where Silvia tore off her pants, and the two men took turns climbing on top of her,' Machado said.
Two other defendants -- Raposo and John Cordeiro -- tried to force the woman into oral sex, the bartender said.
Parts of Machado's testimony Wednesday in the trial of six men charged in the attack differed from statements made by the alleged victim.
Machado said the woman had three 'Seven and Seven's' the evening of March 6, 1983. The woman had said she only sipped a portion of one drink.
