By Samuel Maull
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — The woman who journalist Peter Braunstein is accused of sexually abusing for almost 13 hours after posing as a firefighter to get into her apartment said yesterday that she feared he had raped her while she was unconscious.

She testified Braunstein knocked her out with a chloroform-soaked rag that he held over her nose and mouth. She said she awoke two hours later tied to her bed, naked but for a pair of thong underpants and high-heeled sandals that the attacker had put on her after he invaded her Manhattan apartment on Halloween night 2005.

“Being unconscious for two hours, I automatically assumed that’s what had happened,� the woman testified at Braunstein’s kidnapping, burglary, sex abuse and robbery trial in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court.

The woman had been a co-worker of Braunstein’s at Fairchild Publications, publisher of Women’s Wear Daily and W magazine. She said he was someone she would see in the hallways occasionally but she did not know him.

The victim said her ordeal began shortly before 6 p.m. on Oct. 31, 2005, when she was preparing to go out with friends and heard someone pounding on her door. She said she looked through the door’s peephole and saw a fireman.

“He had on fire gear, a coat and a plastic shield over his face,� she said, adding that she did not know the man was Braunstein.

She said she opened the door and the fireman rushed in, barking orders. Soon afterward, she said, she felt what she thought was a gun at the back of her head. She said the man told her to get on the floor, where he tied her up.

During the night, she said, Braunstein tried to chloroform her a second time, but she fought against blacking out. Meanwhile, she said, he cut her panties off, put another pair of sandals with stiletto heels on her feet, groped her private parts and videotaped her while she was naked — except for the shoes. All the while, the woman said, she pretended to be unconscious, afraid of what the invader would do if he knew she were awake. He already had held a gun to her head, and she had seen a big doubled-edged dagger he was carrying, she said.

She said the man told her she didn’t need to worry about dying because if he had wanted to kill her she would already be dead. She said he told her she was “lucky,� unlike some others he had encountered and killed.

Braunstein, after a nap next to the woman on her bed, finally left around 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 1, she testified. She said she lay still for nearly 10 minutes, fearing that he would kill her if he were still in the apartment.

“I heard dead silence for about 10 minutes, and that’s when I started to free myself,� she said.

She then called a friend and 911. She was taken to a hospital, where it was determined she had not been raped. Braunstein has pleaded not guilty, but his lawyers concede that he committed most of the crimes charged. They say he is mentally ill and is unable to form the intent that would make him criminally responsible for the attack.

“This trial is about why it happened,� defense attorney Celia Gordon told the jury in opening remarks.

She said an “unhealthy� and “turbulent� relationship had destabilized an already fragile psyche. She said Braunstein’s behavior “was consistent with that of someone whose brain just broke.�

Gordon also said Braunstein had been placed in psychiatric wards twice, once after a suicide attempt.

But Assistant District Attorney Maxine Rosenthal told the jury that Braunstein, who had been fired from his job and dumped by his girlfriend, planned the attack “out of anger and a need for revenge.�

Rosenthal said he ordered the firefighter’s gear, the BB gun, the knife, a replica Detroit police badge, handcuffs and materials for making smoke bombs from Internet sites weeks before he invaded the woman’s apartment.

During the woman’s testimony, Rosenthal asked whether Braunstein had responded appropriately during their exchanges, and the victim said he had.

When he was captured, after six weeks on the lam, on the University of Memphis campus, Braunstein stabbed himself in the neck with a dagger. He was subdued by police with pepper spray and arrested Dec. 16, 2005.

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
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