More than a year before a reporter donned a firefighter's
outfit and sexually abused a former co-worker in her home for nearly 13 hours,
he scoured the Internet for scenes he later duplicated with her, prosecutors
say.
Scenes of women drugged, tied up and in various states of nudity were
copied from computers Peter Braunstein was using for about two years before
January 2005, a New York Police Department computer crimes detective testified
yesterday at his trial.
Det. Yolanda Johnson said the computers revealed there had been searches
for photos using the terms "chloroform," "models" and "rape." One photo showed
a woman being held down by men, one of whom held a cloth over her face. Another
showed an apparently unconscious woman being tied at the ankles by a man.
"I stopped counting at 300," Johnson said when asked about the number she
found.
A laptop was used to upload photos of Jane Larkworthy, who is another of
Braunstein's former co-workers and a live-in girlfriend, in various states of
undress to Web sites, and it had been used to write salacious e-mails about
her, the detective said.
Braunstein used his computer to buy most of the items he had when he
dressed up as a fireman on Halloween Night 2005, set off smoke bombs and
bluffed his way into a woman's Manhattan apartment.
Those items included a pellet gun, a knife, rope, chloroform, smoke bomb
materials and a video camera he used to record the victim after he chloroformed
her, stripped her naked and abused her for almost 13 hours, prosecutors say.
Braunstein has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, burglary, sex abuse and
robbery, although his lawyers concede that he attacked the woman. They say he
is mentally ill and cannot be held criminally responsible for the attack.
Braunstein is not on trial for doing anything to Larkworthy, but
prosecutors say his relationship with her shows his motive. Prosecutors say the
Halloween victim, who barely knew Braunstein, was a surrogate for the people
the defendant disliked.
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