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The three magazine salesmen charged with raping a 19-year-old Concord woman in March admitted to the police that they had sex with her and said they had taken it "too far." The police believe the salesmen may have reduced the woman's defenses by lacing her drink with a drug.
The three suspects, who were arrested in Maryland on April 1, were arraigned yesterday in Concord District Court on rape charges. Prosecutor Scott Murray asked Judge Michael Sullivan for high bail, arguing, in part, that the men's door-to-door sales operation was a front for criminal activity.
"Fidelity Reader Service (the company the men sold magazines for) appears to be a cover for an organization which engages in home invasion, burglary, theft and sexual assault," Murray said. "There is an extreme threat to the public."
Sullivan obliged and set bail for Cassidy Coburn, 19, of Monroe, Utah, at $1 million; bail for Christopher (Tobias) Armstrong, 23, of Jonesboro, Ark., at $1.5 million; and bail for Joseph Haniffy, 24, of Chicopee, Mass. at $3 million. Haniffy was described in a police affidavit as the organizer of the group.
During his arraignment, which, like the others, was done from jail by video camera, Haniffy protested the description. "You're making me sound like John Gotti," he told Murray. When he heard his bail was $3 million, Haniffy said, "It's crazy. It's nuts."
The victim watched the proceedings from the courtroom yesterday but did not speak. She did talk with the police shortly after the assault in late March and described for them in detail the nearly two hours she spent with the three men. Her account was released yesterday in a police affidavit. The men entered the woman's apartment building on March 28 by picking a lock at the main door, according to the affidavit. (The police have not said where the woman was living.) They knocked on her door around 6 p.m. She was home alone at the time because her roommate was at work and answered the knock to find two men, Coburn and Armstrong, selling magazines.
The two showed the woman order forms and paperwork from the Better Business Bureau to prove their magazine operation was legitimate. They stepped inside the apartment and asked the woman for something to drink. According to the affidavit, they drank most of the beer from the refrigerator and offered her one too, with the cap off.
The woman told the police that she thought it was okay to drink the beer because it had come from her own house. Within five to 10 minutes, however, she became lightheaded and had trouble concentrating and focusing. She told Coburn and Armstrong that she did not feel well, according to the affidavit.
Coburn and Armstrong then put the woman in a chokehold and told her to smile for photographs. The woman told the police they took photos of her with Coburn and then with Armstrong. Then Haniffy arrived inside the apartment and things changed, according to the woman's statement to the police.
"It was not exactly magazine sales anymore," the woman told the police, according to the affidavit. "She stated that she was scared and didn't want to be there with three guys that she didn't know. She stated that she told them that they had to go and that they could come back when her roommate came home and that she would give them money then."
The men didn't leave.
Haniffy grabbed the woman by the arm and took her into the bathroom, where he made her perform oral sex, according to the affidavit. The woman rushed from the bathroom back to her living room and tried to call a friend for help. The three men then pulled her into her bedroom, shut the door, turned off the lights and raped her, according to the affidavit.
She told them to stop and that they were hurting her, the affidavit said. They told her she was okay.
Haniffy left the apartment first. Coburn and Armstrong followed. She went outside, too, and found her friends, who had just arrived. The friends persuaded the woman to go to the hospital. There, she was examined by hospital staff and interviewed by a Concord police officer. During that interview and one the next day, the woman provided detectives a great deal of information about the men, including their descriptions and first names.
She remembered that Coburn and Armstrong had said they were wanted in Utah and Arkansas, respectively. (Both have charges there, according to Murray.) She knew that Armstrong had tattoos of letters on his knuckles and that Haniffy had bad acne or acne scars on his face.
The police caught up with the men early the next morning in Saugus, Mass., where they had been arrested the previous day on unrelated drug and stolen property charges. According to the affidavit, the police tracked the men to their hotel room with the help of another door-to-door salesman arrested the previous day on an unrelated charges. (The Monitor has previously quoted a Saugus, Mass., detective saying the rape victim had identified the hotel for police.)
In Saugus, the police found a digital camera matching the description of one stolen from the woman's apartment. They also found in Coburn's possession property belonging to the woman, including her personal identification card.
During interviews in the Saugus, Mass., police station, each of the salesmen eventually admitted to having sex with the woman.
Armstrong, whose knuckles are tattooed with letters, said the woman may have agreed to the sex initially but had changed her mind by the time it happened. "I could tell that, you know, I wasn't sure if she really wanted to do this or not,"Armstrong said. "Then definitely, by . . . a minute or two into it, I could tell that she didn't want it to happen."
Coburn initially said he had not had sex with the woman and that he had been outside sleeping in the sales van while the assault happened. He then said he had only kissed the woman on the cheek. He eventually said all three had engaged in sexual activity with her. He was the only one of the three who showed shame or concern for what had happened during the police interviews, according to the affidavit.
"She didn't want to do (sex) with all of us," Coburn told the police. "She didn't. I know she didn't. I know for a fact she didn't. I believe she was scared, and that's why she did everything she did."
Haniffy described the sexual activity much as the victim did, including the order of events. He did so with no regret or emotion, according to the affidavit. He blamed the victim and said the activity went further than she or the men intended.
The men were each assigned lawyers yesterday, but those reached had not received any information about the cases by late yesterday afternoon. Each of the men has a criminal record.
Coburn was charged last year in Utah with possession of marijuana and alcohol as a minor. His driver's license is suspended, and he was charged here last year and again in January with motor vehicle violations.
Armstrong is on probation in Arkansas on forgery charges and has failed to appear four times on motor vehicle charges in that state.
Haniffy has charges in Florida, South Carolina and Ohio for driving while intoxicated, drugs and soliciting under false pretenses, according to Murray. He's also been charged in Massachusetts with assault with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery and violating a restraining order. All have been dismissed, most of them because the victim would not cooperate with prosecutors, according to a court clerk.
The men are due back in court April 22 for probable cause hearings, when a judge will decide if there is enough evidence to transfer the case to the superior court for trial. If the case is transferred, they will be allowed to enter a plea. If the men post bail, they will first have to persuade a judge that the money came from legitimate means.
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