Copyright The Boston Globe
Prosecutors rested their case on Tuesday in the retrial of Terence E. Crosbie, an Irish firefighter accused of raping a woman in a downtown Boston hotel room last year while he was visiting for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. The alleged rape happened after the woman had consensual sex with Crosbie’s roommate, another Dublin firefighter named Liam O’Brien, who was asleep and snoring loudly during the alleged attack on March 15, 2024, according to testimony. On Friday, the woman testified that after she and O’Brien had sex, she went to the bathroom and returned to find him splayed across one of the beds. She got under the covers of the second bed and awoke to Crosbie raping her, she said in court. Advertisement “He was continuing to penetrate me, he didn’t stop,” the woman said in Suffolk Superior Court. “He said that I liked it.” Crosbie, 39, has pleaded not guilty. At the first trial in June, the jury deadlocked. After prosecutors rested their case on Tuesday, Crosbie’s lawyers filed a motion to have the case dismissed, arguing that prosecutors didn’t prove Crosbie’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Judge Joshua Wall denied the motion, saying that prosecutors provided enough evidence, namely the woman’s testimony, for the case to proceed. Earlier in the day, DNA experts said genital samples the woman gave at the emergency room after the alleged assault showed DNA from two men. The material could not be matched either to Crosbie, who provided investigators a DNA sample, or O’Brien, forensic scientist Alexis DeCesaris said. Advertisement “We were not able to make any conclusions or comparisons to known reference DNA,” said DeCesaris, who reviewed the rape kit as part of her work for Bode Technology. Staff from Delta Airlines and Aer Lingus also testified on Tuesday, saying that Crosbie boarded a flight to Dublin on March 16, just hours after being questioned by police detectives. He was originally scheduled to return home on March 19, according to his flight records. State Police Sergeant Michael Fiore described how he and other officers escorted Crosbie from an Aer Lingus flight after it taxied back to the jet bridge. Jurors saw Fiore’s body-worn camera footage showing officers walk down the aisles of the plane, searching for Crosbie. When Crosbie left the plane and stood on the bridge, he exchanged some words with officers and gestured with his hands. Defense attorney Patrick Garrity asked Fiore if Crosbie appeared cooperative. “His behavior appeared cooperative,” Fiore said. “But I didn’t hear what he said to the other officers.” Claire Thornton can be reached at claire.thornton@globe.com. Follow Claire on X @claire_thornto.
