Witness testifies he told Victor Pena to leave victim alone before kidnapping
BOSTON -- Jurors returned to a Boston courtroom Tuesday to hear testimony in the kidnapping trial against Victor Pena. He was present via Zoom.
Pena is accused of kidnapping and raping a 23-year-old woman in January 2019. The woman was found alive in Pena's Charlestown apartment three days later.
An acquaintance of Pena, Marlon Roldan, of Somerville, took the stand Tuesday. He identified Pena in surveillance photos from the night in question.
Testifying through an interpreter, Roldan said he was walking with Pena to an MBTA station when they saw the victim near Congress and State streets.
He said he could tell the woman had been drinking by the way she was walking. Pena stopped to talk to her even though Roldan urged him to leave the woman alone.
"I told him, let's keep going, leave her there and he didn't listen. He continued going with her," Roldan testified.
Pena began kissing the woman and Roldan waited for a bit but then left them, he said.
Roldan eventually went to the police days later. During cross-examination, Roldan acknowledged that he told detectives Pena was a "crazy guy."
Another witness, Amy Simpson told jurors she was the victim with Pena on an Orange Line train together on January 19, 2019.
"Her eyes weren't really open. They were fluttering a bit," Simpson said.
A ping off the victim's cell phone, along with the surveillance video from that night, led police to Pena's apartment.
"She was shaking, crying with her arms clutched up to her face. She was disheveled with a terrified look on her face," retired Boston Police detective Michael Talbot described to the courtroom.
The victim has yet to take the stand, but she could when the trial resumes on Wednesday.