A cop accused of raping a drunk East Village woman later told her that he used a condom that night, according to a secretly taped conversation played in court Monday.
"Did you use a condom?" the woman demanded as she confronted Police Officer Kenneth Moreno outside the precinct where he worked 10 days after the incident.
"Yes I did," Moreno replied -- after repeatedly denying any sexual contact with the woman, who he had helped into her apartment because she was intoxicated.
The woman, 29, wore a wire provided by the Manhattan district attorney's office when she approached Moreno in 2008.
The tape, played at a pre-trial hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court Monday, is expected to take center stage when the woman takes the witness stand at the trial -- expected to open next week.
Moreno, 43, and his partner, Franklin Mata, 27, are charged with rape, burglary and official misconduct in connection with the December 2008 incident.
The two cops met the woman -- who remembers almost nothing about what happened that night -- when they responded to a 911 call from a cab driver who feared his passenger was too drunk to get inside her E. 13th St. building safely.
They returned to the apartment two more times that night.
Mata facilitated but did not participate in the attack, prosecutors charge.
"I just want to know, do I need to be worried about STDs?" the woman asked Moreno as she tried to get a confession out of him on tape.
"No ma'am," Moreno responded.
"I woke up to you guys taking advantage of me," she said.
"No ma'am, nobody took advantage of you," he said. "Ma'am, you want me to admit something that didn't happen?"
About halfway through the confrontation outside the East Village precinct, Moreno twice said he used a condom.
His lawyer argued that he only made the admission when the woman threatened to go into the E. 5th St. precinct and accuse him of rape.
"On tape, you just hear him give in," Moreno's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, said outside court.
On tape, Moreno asks the woman, "Do you remember anything we spoke about?"
"I just remember you getting me a drink of water and I don't remember anything else," she answers.
But then she says: "I woke up to you having sex with me."
"Ma'am no," Moreno responds.
"I was just trying sincerely to help you that day," Moreno insisted. "Anything else you remember happened, it wasn't done intentionally, I should have called an ambulance for you. I apologize for everything."
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