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A defense attorney countered that the sex was consensual and that charges were filed against 23-year-old Arsenio Amelco because of the woman’s unhealthy relationship with her mother.
He also didn’t contest a charge of aggravated assault against his client for breaking the woman’s nose.
The trial began this morning with Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Kristin DeMarco telling jurors that Amelco approached the woman at a bus stop in West New York, where she was waiting to go to work, on Saturday, July 20 of last year.
He asked her to dinner that evening to celebrate his birthday and she accepted, the prosecutor said.
The evening didn’t go well.
First, Amelco showed up dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, not for a date, DeMarco said.
When they got to the Pier 115 restaurant in Edgewater, he didn’t have ID and so they couldn’t get in, she said. They went back to his apartment and got his identification, the prosecutor said. But by the time they got back to the restaurant, the kitchen was closed.
After a couple of hours drinking, Amelco pulled the woman aside into a fenced construction area near the restaurant around 2 a.m., DeMarco said.
He then dragged her under a tractor-trailer and beat her — breaking her nose — and then raped and continued beating until 5:30 in the morning.
Defense attorney Alan Peyrouton said everything was fine until then. He called the couple “young and immature,” saying the woman was five to six years older than Amelco.
There was only trouble, the lawyer said, because the woman said she had to leave or “my mother will kill me.”
“Hearing this, he immediately called her mother to apologize,” Peyrouton said. “Her mother said: ‘Put my daughter on the phone.’
“It was on speaker, and he heard the mother say ‘What are you doing with that loser?’ ”
An argument followed in which the slapped Amelco, who punched her in the face, Peyrouton said.
“We acknowledge he reacted disproportionately and broke her nose,” the attorney said. “But we’re here because of the sexual charges that were brought against him. He reacted disproportionately – we’re not disputing that.
“Why did she bring these charges? Because of her relationship with her mother.”
According to DeMarco, Amelco threatened to kill the woman, who was beaten badly and had blood all over her face and her dress.
As soon as she got home, the prosecutor said, her mother took her to Englewood Medical Center and then to the West New York police department.
Officers there contacted their Edgewater colleagues, who brought the woman to Hackensack University Medical Center for an examination by a sexual assault nurse.
Amelco is charged with nine separate counts of sexual assault and serious bodily injury related to the beating and alleged sexual assaults.
The trial continues today with the alleged victim’s testimony.
STORY / PHOTO: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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