NY- The stepdaughter of rocker David Bowie testified yesterday that an NYPD detective posed and photographed her in sexually explicit positions after she was brutally raped on Staten Island.
Stacia Lipka, the daughter of Bowie’s ex-wife Angela, was shown 15 Polaroid photos seized by investigators from Detective Richard Vecchio’s personal locker – including one shot of her nude, on her hands and knees in her hospital bed, and smiling.
Lipka, 25, was asked by Assistant District Attorney Autumn Levine what she thought of the photos.
“I’m appalled,” replied Lipka, dressed conservatively in a dark suit and white blouse. She said the photos seemed to have nothing to do with the finger marks and bruises left on her body by the assailant.
Lipka was on a suicide watch when Vecchio interviewed her at St. Vincent’s Hospital Staten Island in October 2003. He soon began snapping photos while his partner, Detective John Holbert, cracked jokes, Lipka said. Holbert has not been charged with a crime.
Criminal Court Judge Desmond Green would not allow questions on cross-examination about Lipka’s prior drug use or work as a stripper.
Vecchio, 40, is charged with two counts of misconduct for taking X-rated photos of Lipka and Christina Sellers, whom he had arrested for leaving the scene of an accident in January 2004.
Sellers, 20, also testified yesterday, describing how Vecchio had first photographed tattoos on her lower back and neck while in a holding cell at the 123rd Precinct.