FORT LAUDERDALEâ€"
A Broward jury on Wednesday finally got to hear the infamous recording featuring a Hollywood police officer vowing to "do a little Walt Disney" to protect a fellow cop involved in a 2009 car accident.
The full recording shows Officer Dewey Pressley, on trial for allegedly doctoring crash and DUI reports, conducting sobriety tests on Alexandra Torrens-Vilas, then 23, whose 1997 Toyota Tercel was rear-ended by another officer, Joel Francisco, on Sheridan Street under the Interstate 95 overpass.
Torrens-Vilas is seen on the recording telling Pressley that she had recently left a friend's house, where she participated in a drinking game centered around the TV show "Heroes." Torrens-Vilas is seen failing to keep her balance, and Pressley arrests her.
But Pressley's statements after the arrest have him on trial instead of Torrens-Vilas. A microphone picked up Pressley promising to "get him [Francisco] off the hook" by highlighting Torrens-Vilas' drunken state, her admission that a cat jumped out of her car shortly before the crash, and the allegation that she stopped suddenly in the middle of the road to go after the wayward feline.
Pressley has denied falsifying any reports.
But Torrens-Vilas, now 26, took the stand to testify that she had enough time after stopping her car to put it in neutral and get out to look for the cat, a stray she was taking home from another friend's house, and she didn't even know her car had been in a crash until an officer stopped her from leaving the area.
"That's when I saw the damage to my car," she said. She did not recall hearing the crash.
Defense attorney Rhea Grossman started her cross examination Wednesday by playing the full recording for jurors a second time. On the recording, Torrens-Vilas makes no mention of getting out of her vehicle before the crash.
"I had bad luck because a cop was right behind me and slammed into me," she says to Pressley. She also says on the recording that she was drinking beer that night, though she had just told jurors in person that she had a rum and Diet Coke.
Prosecutors believe Francisco was distracted on his cellphone in the moments leading up to the crash, and Pressley conspired with him to make sure none of the blame fell on Francisco. The police and DUI reports make no mention of Francisco being on a personal phone call when the crash took place, said prosecutor Adriana Alcalde-Padron.
Francisco has also been charged in the case and is set to be tried separately.
Both officers were eventually fired over the incident.
Drunken driving charges against Torrens-Vilas were dropped after the recording of Pressley's voice was released.
Grossman is expected to resume questioning Torrens-Vilas on Thursday afternoon.
raolmeda@tribune.com, 954-356-4457 or Twitter @SSCourts.
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