Andrew Luster
'She Dug It'
On Jan. 10, jurors watched a three-hour video recording of Luster's conversation with a woman detective on the day of his arrest in 2000. Luster, barefoot and wearing shorts and a muscle shirt, was so confident that he waived his right to consult an attorney.
"We did have consensual sex, completely consensual," Luster said of Carey. "I don't know where she gets assault. There was no struggling, no saying, 'No, no, no,' nothing like that...She totally dug it. There was no negativity at all. She was loving it."
Luster insisted again and again that he had done nothing wrong, and jurors heard his characterization of Carey as a "fun-loving nymph."
But Luster's flight was a devastating blow to his attorneys, who apparently had intended to put him on the witness stand as the centerpiece of their case.
Instead, attorney Roger Diamond was forced to repeat his earlier assertions that the sex was consensual, the women were merely pretending to be asleep, and each of the accusers willingly took GHB as part of "hot and heavy" lovemaking that was part of the rave lifestyle.
Diamond's best courtroom prop was a blown-up version of Carey smiling on Luster's sofa on the night they met — proof, Diamond said, that she was enjoying the evening.
But his assertions seemed hollow without a client sitting beside him at the defense table.
The old bromide hung in the air throughout the proceedings: Innocent men don't run.
Diamond attempted to broach the awkward subject. He likened Luster to the title character in the TV serial and film The Fugitive: innocent and wrongly convicted, he sets out to seek justice.
Several jurors seemed to suppress smiles at the absurd comparison.