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The Plaintiff Moves for an Erection

Thursday, April 17, 2008 1:35 PM - By Kashmir Hill

middlebury.jpgThe Hartford Advocate had an article Wednesday entitled The Case of the Bent Penis.

Sexual abuse cases don’t usually make their way on to ATL. But given the nature of the motion, we couldn’t help ourselves:

It was a bizarre scene that unfolded last week in Waterbury Superior Court as New Haven attorney Rob Serafinowicz opened his civil case against former Middlebury First Selectman Edward B. St. John by asking Judge Jane S. Scholl to force St. John to submit to a photograph of his penis, fully aroused.

The jaw-dropping request, made forcefully but without dramatic flourish by the 29-year-old Serafinowicz, came nearly three years after his client, Westport firefighter Neil Perrotti, filed a lawsuit against St. John for allegedly sexually assaulting him in a cottage in Charlestown, R.I. when Perrotti was 17 years old in 1987.

Serafinowicz explained that the photograph was crucial to his case because Perrotti, in a statement he gave to State Police about the alleged incident, claimed that St. John’s penis bent to the left when aroused.

Not surprisingly, the defendant did not want to comment on which way he bends, nor submit to a photo session.

Veteran defense attorney Hugh Keefe of Lynch, Traub, Keefe & Errante, also in New Haven, began his response by noting that when he attended law school he never dreamed he would find himself in this position. Questioning whether Judge Scholl even had the authority to enforce such an “unbelievably preposterous motion,” Keefe said things had only gotten worse in the last 10 minutes, thanks to Serafinowicz’s remarks that his client could “use porn” to get aroused.

“There is not a single case not only in the state of Connecticut but in the world that a court has ordered a defendant to get in a state of arousal,” said Keefe. The precedents Serafinowicz offered were in criminal cases, and therefore not applicable in this case, according to Keefe.

The judge agreed with the defense, saying the exam would be “overly intrusive.”

Too bad. It could have offered the opportunity for a new take on “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

The Case of the Bent Penis [Hartford Advocate]

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Posted in: Sex, Sexual Harassment, Weirdness

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