NORTHAMPTON — Jury deliberations will continue Monday in the case of a former Easthampton man accused of raping and assaulting two girls over more than a decade.
The 12-member jury was sent into deliberations around noon Thursday in Hampshire County Superior Court after attorneys gave closing statements.
Kevin DiRocco, 43, who now lives in Springfield, pleaded not guilty in October 2015 to charges of aggravated rape and abuse of a child, two counts of rape and abuse of a child and eight counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14. He was released on bail pending the trial.
The Gazette generally does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault. DiRocco and the alleged victims were known to each other.
On Wednesday, DiRocco again denied the charges when he took the stand in his own defense.
The jury sent a note to Judge John Agostini Thursday at 3:40 p.m.
“Your honor, at this point the jury has decided one of the indictments. Ten are undecided at an 11 to 1 vote,” the note read. “We feel that we cannot go further today. Can you advise us as to the next step?”
Agostini told the attorneys he was about to send jurors a note asking them if they wanted to suspend deliberations when he received their note. All attorneys agreed with the judge’s decision to suspend deliberations.
In her closing remarks, DiRocco’s attorney, Rachel Weber, argued the two women, now in their early 20s, never had an easy life and that they had made up the allegations because DiRocco had let them down.
“They haven’t had it easy and they have good reason to be very upset with (DiRocco) — So upset, in fact, that they made up a terrible story about him,” Weber told the jury. “Ladies and gentleman, they are lying about what they said he did to them.”
Weber recalled for the jury her opening statement, pointing out what she characterized as inconsistencies in the witnesses’ testimony. She told the jury that one of the alleged victims’ accounts “grew over time,” and that a statement the woman made in court was nowhere in a written statement she provided to police.
Weber also spoke about differences between the first woman’s testimony and that of the testimony of the first person she told about the alleged abuse.
“That might not sound important, but it is when two witnesses, under oath, tell you different things,” Weber said. “That is a big part of what you have to consider.”
Weber also told the jury that other parts of the women’s stories were “just implausible because they don’t make sense.”
In closing, Weber told the jury that DiRocco stands before them accused of some of the “most heinous crimes” a person can be accused of doing and being falsely accused of those crimes “is a nightmare.”
“I’m asking you to end that nightmare now and when you come back from deliberations, you find him not guilty on all charges,” Weber said.
Assistant Northwestern District Attorney Caleb Weiner countered that the evidence before the jurors proved beyond a reasonable doubt that DiRocco was guilty of raping, abusing and indecently assaulting and battering the two women as girls.
“The evidence in this case does not support the conclusion that (the women) are angry, vindictive young women who conspired to lie to you, to perjure themselves and to falsely accuse (DiRocco) of these crimes,” Weiner said. “That is not reasonable. That is not consistent with your common sense. That is not consistent with your life experience.”
Weiner argued that during the time of the alleged assaults, the girls did not have the vocabulary nor the life experience to know what was happening to them.
“What is worse, for her, that was normal,” Weiner said, in reference to one of the alleged victims. “That was normal behavior and that is what she knew and that is what she grew up knowing.”
Countering Weber’s statement that the two alleged victims lied, Weiner asked the jury what the women would have to gain.
The jury will resume deliberations Monday at 9 a.m.
This story has been updated. Emily Cutts can be reached at ecutts@gazettenet.com.