Last June, the Brooklyn DA made a big announcement about the arrests of Damien Crooks and Jamali Brockett, who were accused of forcing a 13-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl into prostitution in 2003—and continuing to rape, assault and sexually traffic her for the next eight years. Two of their "associates," Jawara Brockett and Darrell Dula, were also charged with raping the victim. But this week it emerged that the alleged victim recanted her accusation almost immediately, telling detectives she was a prostitute for five years and simply made up the rape allegation.
The unidentified woman filed the complaint at the end of March in 2010 when she was 22 years old, accusing the men of raping her, beating her, and pimping her out since she was 13. But the next day she denied being raped. The Daily News obtained a copy of the detective's report, in which he writes, “I once again asked [her] if she was raped. She told me ‘no’ and stated to me, ‘Can’t a ho change her ways?’ "
The alleged victim gave a signed recantation, but the Brooklyn DA proceeded with the case anyway, and a grand jury indicted the four men last spring. The woman's recantation was never shared with defense attorneys until this week. The News reports that prosecutor Rebecca Gingold, who recently replaced Assistant District Attorney Abbie Greenberger, discovered the missing documents, "tracked them down," and turned them over to Dula's lawyer, James Phillips.
Dula has been in jail for ten months, and was finally released yesterday, returning to his home in Crown Heights, where the News interviewed him as he played with his son outside his home. His attorney calls the revelation a “smoking gun that destroys the credibility of this witness—the only witness against my client admitted to lying." We contacted the DA's office for more on this, and we'll update if they decide to get back to us. But Crooks's lawyer asks the Post, "How do they go on TV talking about this huge sex-trafficking bust when they had written documentation from police officers in which she admitted lying?"
