WORCESTER, Mass. -- Testimony resumed Wednesday in the trial of a Unitarian minister who allegedly raped and brutalized a Tibetan woman after bringing her to this country seven years ago.
The Rev. Mack Mitchell is charged with seven counts of rape, 12 counts of unnatural rape and five counts of indecent assault and battery. The assaults allegedly occurred from 1985 to 1991 in Mitchell's Northboro farmhouse.
Mitchell, 56, served for 23 years as pastor of the First Congregational Unitarian Church in Northborough and concurrently 12 years at the Westborough Unitarian Universalist Church. He resigned both positions in January.
Assistant District Attorney Mary Gecewicz told jurors during opening statements Tuesday that Mitchell began abusing the Tibetan woman two weeks after she arrived in the United States.
He began by fondling her breasts then proceeded to rape and bondage, telling his victim to 'be quiet and enjoy it,' the prosecutor told a Superior Court jury.
The woman was born in a small village in India and, when she turned 14, Mitchell talked with her parents about educating her in the United States. She came to this country in March 1985 and Mitchell gave her free room and board while she enrolled in high school.
The woman testified that she protested when Mitchell began assaulting her but he did not stop and told her 'not to make noise.' He allegedly held her down and kept his hand over her mouth.
The rapes occurred two or three times a week, the woman testified, always after Mitchell's then-wife and others in the farmhouse went to bed.
She said Mitchell moved her to a bedroom near his when his wife left him in 1987, and began doing 'new things to hurt me.'
Defense lawyer Michael Monopoli said there were no locks to keep the alleged victim in the farmhouse. He also had the woman acknowledge that she asked Mitchell to perform her marriage ceremony in 1990.
Monopoli told jurors the woman has filed a civil suit seeking monetary damages from Mitchell, but the woman responded emotionally, saying she does not have a job because she cannot sleep and 'there is no way of bringing back what I was before.'
