When asked by the prosecutor who the man was, she pointed to Oscar Dela Cruz, who is charged with rape in the course of a kidnapping in the alleged July 28 assault in a Lawndale strip mall parking lot.

The woman previously had identified Dela Cruz, 37, as her attacker in court, in a police photographic lineup and with a picture she drew with crayons.

Dela Cruz, who is expected to testify next week, claims the woman stood up and began undressing while he was driving her to her restaurant job. His attorney said during opening statements that he stopped the taxi van to get her to sit down, she pulled him toward her and they had consensual sex.

His attorney, Lola McAlpin-Grant, asked the woman if she ever got out of her seat.

"No, no, no," she said. "I was sitting alone in the back."

"Did you ever attempt to take your own pants off?" McAlpin-Grant asked.

"No, myself, no I did not pull my pants down," answered the woman, whose mother testified Thursday that she was born deaf, developmentally disabled and suffers from cerebral palsy and seizure disorders.

Her disabilities make it impossible for her to care for herself, including even simple tasks like getting dressed or dialing the phone, her mother said.

McAlpin-Grant also questioned the woman about what she told her mother and what the mother translated to sheriff's deputies and a sexual assault nurse. McAlpin-Grant has suggested to the Torrance Superior Court jury that the woman's mother or the authorities twisted the woman's gestured accounts of the incident to make it seem she was raped.

During questioning by Deputy District Attorney Jodi Link, the woman said Dela Cruz picked her up at her home and drove a few minutes before parking in a secluded spot.

When shown a picture of the parking lot, the woman repeatedly tapped an area under a tree with her finger.

She said he came around to the back seat and pulled down her pants and his pants, exposing his penis.

"It was out and ... I was there," she said pointing to a photograph of the cab. "And he put it between my legs, the taxi man."

Also Friday, a nurse who performed a sexual assault exam on the woman testified she saw hemorrhaging and fresh redness in and around the woman's genitals, consistent with blunt force trauma.

Misha Jordan also said she saw abrasions on the woman's inner, upper thighs, consistent with marks left behind if someone were to have pried open her legs.

By Denise Nix, Daily Breeze
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/2297731.html

Followup: http://www.4hearingloss.com/archives/2006/02/jurors_are_told.html