Love, 'rape' and the Cambodian bride

gloucestertimes.com

After nine months in jail, city man cleared of all charges

By Patrick Anderson
Staff Writer

From the day he was handed her photograph at work until he married her a year later in a traditional Cambodian ceremony, Michael Curcuru acted like a man in love.

Through hundreds of international telephone calls and thousands of dollars spent on airfare, legal work and immigration fees, Curcuru worked to bring his 20-year-old bride from Southeast Asia back to Gloucester.

But shortly after she arrived at Logan Airport in July 2007, Curcuru's plans and the promises of his bride's friends and family quickly unraveled.

A few weeks later, she had taken up residence at a house in Lynn and refused to see him. In a month, Curcuru was hit with a restraining order. On Sept. 24 he was arrested by Gloucester Police and charged with rape.

"She was my wife — I fell in love with her," Curcuru said in an interview yesterday. "The money didn't matter. She said she loved me, too."

Now, an Essex County jury has cleared Curcuru, 37, of all charges connected with his wife's complaint, including allegations of kidnapping and indecent sexual assault in addition to rape.

After nine months in jail, the loss of his job and home, Curcuru said yesterday he was trying to "get his life back" and start over.

The unusual circumstances leading up to Curcuru's marriage began while he was working at a Gloucester medical supplier in the summer of 2005 and his boss's wife handed him a photo of a 20-year-old woman and asked him if he would like to meet her, he said. The photo, the boss's wife said, had come from a friend of hers.

Within weeks, Curcuru was speaking on the phone with the woman in the photograph "every day," he said, and already discussing love and marriage.

In July 2006, he flew to Cambodia and met the woman for the first time. During the 10-day visit, the couple was married.

But it would be another year before Curcuru could get his wife to America. In the interim, he said yesterday, he estimates he spent more than $10,000 making the arrangements necessary to get her into the country. That money included paying $2,500 to a Cambodian woman in Lynn who had originally given his boss's wife the photograph.

When he went to Logan Airport to pick up his wife, the same woman from Lynn was also there, and instead of coming with him to Gloucester, his bride went with her instead.

Prosecutors' account of the story picks up two days later, when she did accompany him to Gloucester — where, she told investigators, he forced her to have sex with him.

After returning to Lynn for two days, the wife came back to Gloucester and, according to the police report, told investigators she was raped again.

She returned to Lynn and contacted representatives of the Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence in Boston, who took her statement and later called Gloucester detectives.

Curcuru said yesterday said he did have sex with the woman July 19, 2007, but denied forcing her to do anything against her will.

He noted that she had not made any complaints against him as of that July 25, when she had spent the day with his mother and relatives, or that July 27, when the couple went to Lynn City Hall for a marriage application. Despite the ceremony in Cambodia, Curcuru said he was looking to formalize the union in this country before beginning the process of getting his wife a green card or citizenship.

He said they had talked about starting a family and she had said she wanted to become a hairdresser.

After the marriage application trip, Curcuru said his bride "disappeared" and he didn't see her again until Aug. 24, 2007, at a hearing on his restraining order.

Curcuru's lawyer, Carmine Lepore of Revere, said the rape case had hinged on the alleged victim's testimony, its inconsistencies and believability.

"It came down to the credibility of the witnesses," Lepore said. "The other thing the jury struggled with were the circumstances of their relationship and her coming to America."

A video of the marriage entered into evidence that showed a reluctant bride with little affection for the groom also contributed to the jury's unease, Lepore said.

Curcuru said he now thinks the entire chain of events, from the distributing of the photograph to the contacts in Lynn, had simply been part of an effort to find a way to the United States.

"Every time she told her story, it changed," Curcuru said. "She hoodwinked me. It was all a scam to get into this country."

Patrick Anderson can be reached at panderson@gloucestertimes.com