Behind The Blue Dot

By Cathy Booth/West Palm Beach

She was nameless and faceless, just a blue dot, gray smudge or white circle on TV screens. Only her shoulder-length black hair was visible around the edges of the distortion, along with a bit of tailored suit and a string of pearls. Inside the courtroom, however, the jury and a few spectators had a clear view for nearly two days of a 30-year-old single mother struggling with a variety of emotions, from anger to anguish, as she testified about a fateful evening.

During almost 10 hours of bruising testimony and cross-examination, the alleged rape victim struggled hard to maintain her composure. But frequently she failed. Rather plain-featured, simply but expensively dressed, she looked only twice at the man she says raped her. Asked to identify him, she exhaled and paused before nodding briefly at William Kennedy Smith. In an almost matter-of-fact tone, she described meeting him at the trendy Au Bar disco last Easter weekend. Smith, she said, seemed such "a very nice man," whom she trusted because as a medical-school student, he could talk about the problems ^ she had experienced with her prematurely born daughter, now 2.

It was a far different man, she alleged, who slammed her to the ground, pulled up her skirt, pulled aside her panties, raped her and then said indifferently, "No one will believe you." As she was asked to provide more and more graphic details of the alleged rape, she fidgeted with her pearl necklace, rubbed her left shoulder, then broke into uncontrollable tears. No one gave her a tissue at first, so she wiped them away with her hands as the courtroom audience watched in fascination.

The woman struggled to maintain composure as defense attorney Roy Black hammered away at lapses and inconsistencies in the five statements she gave to police. How was he able to get your legs apart? Was penetration difficult or easy? Were you in any way sexually aroused? Did you feel ejaculation? Was he able to maintain an erection? "Why do you have to ask me questions like that?" she asked, looking Black in the eye as her tears ran. Invariably when she broke down, Black would request a recess, often over the woman's objections.

During more than five hours of cross-examination, the alleged victim held to her main accusation with steely insistence. Only on Thursday did she let her anger break through. With her eyes swollen from the tears, she leaned forward and wagged her finger at Smith across the courtroom. "What he did to me was wrong," she said. "I don't want to live for the rest of my life in fear of that man. I don't want to be responsible for him doing it to someone else." Presiding judge Mary Lupo ordered jurors to disregard the statement. When attorney Black offered one last objection, the witness still did not buckle. "Sir," she said flatly, "your client raped me." Afterward, she left without saying a word.