A Boston man pleaded not guilty to one count of rape connected to an alleged incident at the state police barracks in Oak Bluffs this summer.
Edward Joseph Brown, 27, entered the not guilty plea during a virtual hearing in the Edgartown District Court on Tuesday. Prosecutors claim that Mr. Brown raped a woman he had met while at a bar in Oak Bluffs and brought back to the barracks.
Mr. Brown was visiting the Island and staying with a trooper who was living in the barracks, according to the Cape and Islands district attorney’s office.
Oak Bluffs police began investigating the alleged rape after two 911 calls came to the county dispatch shortly before 1 a.m. on August 15, assistant district attorney Courtney Scalise told the court during the arraignment. The callers described a woman naked in the street outside the barracks on Temahigan Road.
One of the people who found the woman brought her to Martha’s Vineyard Hospital down the road, and when Oak Bluffs police officers talked to the woman, they said she had bruising on her legs and a large red mark on her neck, Ms. Scalise said.
The woman, who is from Ireland, was out at the Ritz with friends and told investigators that she recalled a man grabbing her buttocks and trying to buy her a drink, Ms. Scalise said.
The assistant district attorney told the court that the woman couldn’t initially recall what happened after the bar, and remembered waking up with the man naked and on top of her in an unfamiliar location.
The woman was examined by a nurse and later said that a man held her down by the neck and forced himself upon her, Ms. Scalise said.
Oak Bluffs police talked to friends of the victim and sought out surveillance footage in the area. They found some footage that showed a man wearing a white hat approach the victim and then the two got into an Uber together, according to the prosecutor.
A bouncer from the Ritz later came forward and said he may have a photo of the suspect from an earlier night in the summer. Though the bouncer didn’t know the man’s name, he knew the man was friends with state troopers.
That photo showed the man with a woman who used to date Ryan Costello, a trooper stationed at the barracks, Ms. Scalise said.
Oak Bluffs police reached out to Mr. Costello, who said that the suspect was Mr. Brown, a friend from Boston who was visiting the weekend of the alleged rape.
Another man who was out with Mr. Costello and Mr. Brown on the night of the incident confirmed that Mr. Brown was talking to a woman at the Ritz.
Oak Bluffs police executed a search warrant for the state police barracks, as well as the rideshare accounts for Mr. Brown. Police could not find the woman’s clothes or phone, but did learn that Mr. Brown took an Uber at 12:27 a.m. on August 15 from downtown Oak Bluffs to the barracks.
Officers talked to the Uber drive who said a man who matched Mr. Brown’s description was with a woman who seemed highly intoxicated, but did not seem intoxicated himself, Ms. Scalise said.
Oak Bluffs police applied for a search and arrest warrant for Mr. Brown on Oct. 8 and after it was granted Boston police arrested him the next day at Boston Latin Academy, where Mr. Brown works.
Police found what they suspected was cocaine in Mr. Brown’s wallet, according to Ms. Scalise.
Mr. Brown had several other restraining orders from women against him, and the district attorney’s office asked that bail be set at $50,000.
Mr. Brown’s attorney Anthony Ellison pushed back on the amount, and also argued that Mr. Brown did not need to wear the GPS monitor that Ms. Scalise requested.
Mr. Ellison highlighted Mr. Brown’s deep family roots in Boston, and said he has had no prior charges against him.
“There is no risk of flight with Mr. Brown,” he said. “I can tell you that he knew of these allegations early on and, in fact, did not flee the Commonwealth.”
Mr. Brown’s family was able to pool $10,000 and could not afford the higher bail, his attorney told Judge Benjamin Barnes.
Mr. Ellison also noted that the alleged victim in the case told officers that she wasn’t interested in pursuing criminal charges and was back in Ireland.
“They claim to have a strong case,” he said. “At first blush, you might think so, but when they don’t have a cooperative victim, and you have her own friends telling you that she was enjoying herself at the bar, and we have to find out what this same kit is going to reveal, we have a man who’s presumably innocent.”
Judge Barnes ordered Mr. Brown to stay away and have no contact with the victim or the witnesses of the case. He set bail at $10,000 and declined to require a GPS monitor. Mr. Brown does have to check in with probation once a week, and must turn over any firearms if he has any.
The court set a Dec. 3 pretrial date.