The trial of an Auburn man accused of raping a woman in a Boston hotel in 2018 began Wednesday in a Suffolk County, Massachusetts.
Charles Bergeron, 32, is one of two men accused of raping the former Auburn woman, who was 23 at the time, at the Westin on the night of Nov. 10, 2018.
Bergeron was charged in Massachusetts with rape. David Hughes, now 54, of Manhattan Beach, California, was charged with kidnapping, assault with intent to rape and assault and battery.
Both men have pleaded not guilty. Hughes’ trial has been scheduled for August.
Several family members and friends of both the woman and the accused were in the courtroom Wednesday. The families are familiar with one another in the Lewiston and Auburn area. The woman had been a standout basketball player at Edward Little High School while Bergeron played hockey and golf for St. Dominic Academy.
The men are accused of raping the woman, described as impaired and unable to consent, separately at the hotel on the same evening. The woman has also sued Westin for reportedly failing to intervene on the sexual assaults. That civil case has not yet gone to trial.
According to court documents, the woman was with her brother and friends at a bar near the TD Garden that night. Shortly after she and her friends got to the bar, Bergeron arrived, having come to Boston with a group of friends.
The woman and Bergeron had dated briefly in 2015, according to court records, but the woman had made it clear on several occasions that she was no longer interested in him.
Later that night, according to court records, Bergeron, who was married at the time, got the woman into an Uber and took her back to his hotel room.
In court documents the woman is described only as Ms. Doe and her level of impairment is stressed at several points.
“Video footage from the Westin hotel show(s) that Ms. Doe is unable to stand up and is clearly in need of assistance,” the complaint states. “Because of her condition, Ms. Doe was unable to consent to sex.”
Prosecutors are expected to argue that Bergeron brought the woman to his room for a sexual encounter despite obvious signs that she was incapacitated.
Documents state that Doe fell in the lobby and had to sit in a chair — “reclined in such a way that made it clear she was not sober” — while Bergeron got a spare key for his hotel room from the front desk.
Bergeron is then accused of dragging Doe to the elevators before taking her up to his sixth floor room and sexually assaulting her.
“After Mr. Bergeron raped Ms. Doe,” according to the court document, “he physically ‘dumped’ her in the elevator, sending her back down into the hotel lobby while he retreated to his hotel room.”
Shortly after, the woman stumbled into the bar area near the lobby and put her head down on a table, according to the records. There, according to court reports, she was spotted by David Hughes, a Harvard Business School graduate who lives in Manhattan Beach, California, and who was in Boston to celebrate his 50th birthday.
Hughes approached her within minutes of her sitting down and then led her to the bank of elevators, the court document alleges.
“At one point before she got on an elevator, Ms. Doe had to steady herself by facing the wall and resting her forehead on it,” the suit says. “One elevator appears to have arrived and closed before Ms. Doe could get on the elevator because she was so impaired.”
Doe awoke several hours later, “naked and bleeding,” in the bed in Hughes’ room, according to the lawsuit. She then went to her brother’s apartment and then to a hospital where she reported the alleged sexual assaults to police.
According to the lawsuit against the hotel, Westin’s security team “had dismissed Ms. Doe as a sex worker” and so didn’t intervene.
In the trial against Bergeron, jurors were selected Tuesday and the trial got underway about 2:15 p.m. Wednesday in Suffolk County Superior Court at Pemberton Square. Several court proceedings in the case had been delayed due to COVID-19.
In opening arguments Wednesday, Bergeron’s defense attorney promised to demonstrate that his client’s sexual encounter with Ms. Doe was consensual.
The woman is expected to take the stand later this week.
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