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    Insider's notebook

    By Times staff writer

    © St. Petersburg Times, published October 30, 2000


    The verdict: Trial was, well, unusual

    It is rare for all the Insider's observations to come from one setting, but last week proves the exception. The trial of Geoffrey Davis on rape charges was by all accounts an odd event.

    The woman who accused Davis, 47, of assaulting her, smiled and laughed with Davis from across the courtroom, chatted with him during breaks in the trial, and ate pizza with him while jurors deliberated Thursday.

    She told jurors that the two smoked crack together and, despite the charges, remain friends. Although the woman said she never had consensual sex with Davis, she testified -- in some uncomfortable detail -- that the two had experimented on each other with sex toys.

    At one point, Prosecutor Pat Siracusa asked Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Brandt Downey to remove the woman from the courtroom because she "makes eyes" at Davis.

    Davis, the brother of St. Petersburg Police Chief Goliath Davis III, was cleared of rape charges Thursday but was found guilty of lesser charges of assault and possession of cocaine.

    IF YOU'D LIKE TO INTERRUPT AN ATTORNEY DURING TRIAL, PRESS 1: Davis' defense attorney J.S. Lucas Fleming heard his mobile phone go off during his client's rape trial last week. Fleming told Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Brandt Downey that he didn't realize it was on and said he had better turn it off.

    "I think that's a good idea unless you want me to own one," Downey said. The jury was not in the courtroom at the time.

    I KNOW IT WHEN I SEE IT: Prosecutor Pat Siracusa was questioning the woman accusing Geoffrey Davis of rape when the defense objected to her identifying cocaine residue on a crack pipe.

    The woman was not an expert and wouldn't know, J.S. Lucas Fleming said.

    "I know residue when I see it," the woman blurted out.

    Objection withdrawn.

    IT'S FAMILY DAY IN COURT: She's watched her sons wrestle, play soccer and shoot hoops. Now, Judy Siracusa was watching her oldest son, Assistant State Attorney Pat Siracusa, at work, talking about sexual toys, positions and female anatomy during a rape trial last week.

    "I couldn't believe my timing," said Mrs. Siracusa of Clearwater. Her lawyer son is the oldest of three boys. He's always been focused and kept his siblings in line, she said.

    After listening to the sexually explicit language, Mrs. Siracusa said she didn't recognize some of the terms. Still, she wasn't embarrassed. "He probably would blush more," she said.

    Mrs. Siracusa was disappointed that her husband missed the trial because he was out of town. He would have been proud of his son, too.

    Siracusa's parents often come to his trials, but "given the graphic descriptions that were offered by my victim, it wouldn't have been my first choice of trials for (my mother) to see," Siracusa said.

    - Times staff writer Jounice L. Nealy contributed to this report.

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