A Boston jury was unable to reach a verdict this week in the trial of an Auburn man accused in a 2018 rape of a former Auburn woman in Massachusetts.
The trial of Charles Bergeron, 32, began last week in Suffolk County Superior Court. The jury got the case on Monday but after three days, they announced they were deadlocked and a mistrial was declared.
A new trial, scheduled to begin Sept. 21, 2023, was announced immediately after jurors declared themselves deadlocked.
Bergeron, who remained free since he was charged in the case, was to remain free on the same bail, according to court documents. He 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 in the case. David Hughes, now 54, of Manhattan Beach, California, was charged with kidnapping, assault with intent to rape and assault and battery. Hughes’ trial was scheduled for August.
Both men have denied the charges.
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 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 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 Hughes, a Harvard Business School graduate who lives in Manhattan Beach, California, and who was in Boston to celebrate his 50th birthday.
The trial was heavily attended by friends and family of Bergeron and his accuser. 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 in Auburn while Bergeron played hockey and golf for St. Dominic Academy in Auburn.
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