In this corner: a gorgeous blonde pre-op transexual hooker -- best known for getting kicked off America's Top Model in 2006.
In the other corner: hunky FDNY calendar boy Taylor Murphy, best known as Mr. March, 2011 and now the accused biter, puncher and strangler - to the point of near unconsciousness-- of his ex-girlfriend, the above tranny model.
The first-round bell was rung this morning on the sex-charged assault trial, with testimony in Manhattan Supreme Court by curvaceous alleged victim Claudia Charriez expected to stretch into the afternoon.
Stephen Yang
Claudia Charriez
Steven Hirsch
Taylor Murphy
"It's a textbook dysfunctional relationship," defense lawyer Jason Berland told jurors in opening statements this morning -- an understatement both sides agree with. Although in this case, the hypothetical textbook would best be consigned to the curtained back rooms of even the more disreputable book dealers.
"He grabbed her again with his massive hands," assistant district attorney Kevin Rooney told jurors in his own opening statements, describing how the two grappled in their room at the Metronome Hotel in August 2011.
"He punched her in the back on the right side, by the shoulder blade," the prosecutor said. "Enough to make her fear what was coming as he slammed the door shut…the two struggled. He bit her on the forearm. Ultimately he pinned her down on the bed…all 240 pounds of her on top of her, into her, until she felt like she was literally engulfed by the bed.
"He spit at her," the prosecutor continued, his voice rising. "Covering her mouth so she couldn't scream."
It hadn't started out that way.
The relationship had actually started as a love match made in heaven, both sides agree.
She started life as a troubled Spanish Catholic boy in Queens, the prosecutor told jurors, leaving home to start turning tricks on the street at age 14. Murphy was the son of a retired FDNY deputy chief, the defense lawyer told jurors -- abandoned by mom, never close to dad, often "taking solace in alcohol," and harboring a staggering secret.
"The secret is that Taylor is bisexual who is specifically attracted to and dates people who are transsexual," the lawyer told jurors. The secret, in other words, is "being a gay man in the very heterosexual, very macho world of the FDNY."
Murphy, who is now retired from stints with Engine 59 and the elite Ladder Co. 1, considered Miss Charriez "his soul mate," and "the love of his life," the lawyer told jurors.
"He told her he had seen her on TV, and had already dated transgender girls before," the prosecutor told jurors of the fateful Summer 2008 chance meeting between the tranny-loving, smoke-eater and the heavily-breast-implanted blonde.
What, nearly two years later, went wrong? On this, the combatants disagree.
"The relationship unfortunately went south when Taylor discovered she was sick with a venereal disease" the defense lawyer explained to jurors, "and was working as a prostitute. Because he loved her he begged her to stop working as an escort. But his pleas fell on deaf ears." He started seeing other trannies. Charriez then embarked on a campaign of threats and allegations, months prior to the ones at hand, the defense lawyer said.
But the prosecution counters that the breakup -- and the final blow-out at the West 56th Street hotel -- was spurred by the firefighter's drunken jealousy. On the night of their violent clashing, the pair had wandered into Flashdancers in Times Square, where indiscretion piled on indiscretion.
Somehow, Murphy wound up with a dancer on his lap. Somehow, his surgically-enhanced date wound up chatting up sundry patrons, who mistook her, understandably enough, for an employee.
They stormed outside. "She called him a f----t --" fighting words given his firehouse insecurities, the prosecutor told jurors. "She started screaming "Rape! Rape!" the defense lawyer told jurors.
They would angrily dash back to their room -- in separate cabs -- but not before Murphy allegedly slammed his date into a phone booth and dragged her down the sidewalk by the hair, either briefly or the length of four full city blocks, depending on which of the tranny's accounts is relied on.
Then, eventually, they would kiss, and cry, and make up, right there on the bed, right after their violent fight, prosecutors concede.
"She realized she could not stop him," the prosecutor said. "She began to cry and she pulled him closer to her, then he started crying and they sat up in the room for several minutes," he said. But the two made immediate plans to see each other the very next afternoon, the defense lawyer says. They saw each other again, a few days after that, prosecutors concede.
Murphy is charged with felony strangulation and felony violation of an order of protection barring him from contacting his alleged victim -- which prosecutors say Murphy in fact did 1,400 times, in the form of texts and phone calls, between Dec. 2011 and February 2012.
The trial is before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice A Kirke Bartley.
