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Woman says Russell slipped her a ‘mickey’

By Justin Pritchard The Associated Press
Tuesday June 11, 2002

ALAMEDA — The woman who accused Oakland Raiders defensive tackle Darrell Russell of videotaping her being raped by two of his friends testified Monday that she blacked out after Russell mixed her a drink. 

The 27-year-old woman, who was dating Russell when she said the NFL player raped her on Jan. 31, also said she vaguely remembered looking up at a working video camera. 

The testimony came on the first day of a preliminary hearing. Russell is charged with 25 felonies as an accomplice in the attack. 

The woman said she arranged to meet Russell at a San Francisco club. She testified that she was at the club for about an hour and had two drinks before she spotted Russell and his friends sitting across the room. 

She said she was feeling fine until Russell took a bottle of alcohol from the table at which he was sitting and mixed a “pinkish, fruity” drink for her. 

“I did not watch his every move of making the drink, but I know he did make the drink,” she testified. 

“I don’t recall anything much after that,” she said. But she added that when she woke up from a nap at work the next day, she had visions of someone videotaping her the previous night. 

“All I could see was a red light,” she said. 

Police said they seized a videotape of the incident during a search of the Alameda house where Russell’s teammate, safety Eric Johnson, lived. 

Russell’s lawyer, Cristina C. Arguedas, tried to characterize the woman as someone who is out for money. Under cross-examination, the woman, who went out with Russell about six times, said she plans to file a civil suit against Russell, the former No. 2 overall selection in the NFL draft. 

Arguedas also said that it was reasonable for Russell to think the woman was consenting to the act because she admitted to drinking and having sex separately with Russell and Johnson in the same night two weeks before the incident 

“They go clubbing, they drink, they have sex,” Arguedas said.