One man grimaced but kept watching. A woman shuddered, wiped her eyes, then seemed to force herself to turn back to the screen.
But most of the jurors hid their thoughts and emotions Tuesday as they watched a videotape purported to show three young men, including an Orange County assistant sheriff's son, raping an unconscious 16-year-old girl.
It was the first time that jurors were shown the much-discussed video, though the public was not permitted to see the footage.
Still, the public and the press remained in the courtroom Tuesday while the four-woman, eight-man jury watched the 20 minutes of videotape shot in the garage of Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl's Corona del Mar home.
Haidl was not home during the Fourth of July weekend in 2002 when his son, Gregory Scott Haidl, 18, is alleged, along with Kyle Joseph Nachreiner and Keith James Spann, both 19, to have sexually assaulted the girl on a couch and a pool table. At the time, the three defendants lived in the Rancho Cucamonga area. Each defendant faces a maximum 55-year prison sentence if convicted on all counts.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Hess told jurors Monday, the trial's opening day, that the boys are shown having sex with the girl as she lies limp with closed eyes, then raping her with various objects -- including a bottle, a pool cue and a lighted cigarette.
Defense attorneys contend that the girl was pretending to be unconscious and that the encounter was consensual, part of an orgy that the girl orchestrated herself.
On Tuesday afternoon, the courtroom was silent except for the rap music and conversation blaring from the three TV monitors positioned around the jury box.
The footage starts with one boy giggling, followed by a pause, then the girl says, "You're trying to take off my clothes, huh, Greg?" Her tone seems to be teasing, not indignant, and she adds a few seconds later, "I am so [expletive] up."
She is not heard during the rest of the video. The boys speak occasionally, and luridly. Three times one can hear a spanking sound. While the video played, Nachreiner scrawled notes and ignored the monitors. Spann and Haidl mostly stared at their hands, occasionally sneaking glances at the jurors or the video.
Near the end of the video, one female juror appeared to twist her lips in disgust, then turned and narrowed her eyes at the defendants before turning back to the monitor.
