Moira Penza
speaker
110 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Moira Penza’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
And I think in that respect, it will be a little bit more matter of fact than we might have seen in the NXIVM case, where I think Mark...
made more of an effort to try and paint Keith Raniere as actually a good man with good intentions, as opposed to here where I think they realize it will be a more effective strategy to admit that Mr. Combs is a deeply flawed individual and just try and get the jury to stay focused on the narrow issue of, are these crimes actually proven?
So I think in both cases, Dr. Hughes's testimony is being used very similarly. I think the NXIVM case is actually the first case in which Dr. Hughes testified, and she's now testified quite a bit on behalf of the government and on behalf of victims of abuse and sex trafficking.
The reality is that victims of sex crimes, victims of domestic abuse often behave in ways that may seem counterintuitive to a lay person, to a jury. We often see victims writing text messages talking about how much they love their abuser. We see them going back, having consensual sex after they've been raped.
And that sort of behavior can sometimes, for somebody who is not familiar with the psychology of it, seem like it goes against the credibility of the victim. In reality, those behaviors are very common. I've seen it in... every sex crimes case that I was involved in. And, you know, now as somebody who comments on these sorts of cases, it's something that you see in basically every case.
And what Dr. Hughes does is not talking about the specifics of the case at all can explain why this sort of victim behavior and the psychology of it and why we can see that and put it into terms that are understandable for a jury. And then the jury can apply what they've heard from Dr. Hughes to what they've heard the victim say. And then it may be a lot more understandable.
So, for example, Dr. Hughes talks about the fact that there's often love in these long-term relationships where there's abuse. But there's these trauma bonds that keep people coming back, even in situations where a lay person who, you know, thankfully has not experienced this sort of behavior thinks, why didn't she just leave? The door was open. Yeah. She had family. She could have gotten help.
And Dr. Hughes can explain how difficult that can be in a situation where you've been abused repeatedly, especially where you have an individual who is extremely famous, who has enormous power over your career. And that can be really helpful for the jury in answering some questions that they might have.
I don't think that consent is a real challenge in this case because of the level of physical violence that you have and because of the coercive elements, the threats of blackmail. It's something that is a challenge for the government, but certainly something that can be overcome. And I think it's just something for the government to address head on. But this isn't a he said, she said case.
It's really going to come down to the legal standard. And I think the government is going to be able to show how... Regardless of what Ms. Ventura may have said on any occasion or what the text messages say, that the elements of sex trafficking are met, that's what we're going to hear the government say about these alleged crimes.
I think that's one of the most challenging aspects of being a prosecutor because you are really asking these alleged victims to relive some of the most traumatizing events of their life. What I like to do is remind our victims back when I was a prosecutor that this individual doesn't have power over you anymore.
It's very different to see them in a courtroom when they've been charged with a crime and you're in the witness stand versus when you may have last seen them and all they are is this super high-powered individual. And then always reminding people that they are not here to be an advocate for the government. They're just there to tell the truth.
I also like to remind victims that there's a lot of corroboration that we can't tell them about. So there's going to be a lot of other evidence that helps support what they're saying. And we can't tell them the specifics of that, but we can tell them that they're not out there alone.
And then in terms of cross-examination, just, again, tell victims to tell the truth, to answer questions posed by the defense attorney the same way they're answering questions by the prosecutor. And, you know, we talk about what to expect. We would talk about you're going to see text messages saying that you loved him. And just try and take away as much of the surprise element as you can.
No problem. Thanks for having me.
Well, I think the prosecution is being very methodical. They are trying to elicit testimony that is really going to meet the elements of the crimes. And so where they have salacious details, I think they are keeping it narrowly focused on what they actually are going to need to prove. And I think that's the right approach for the government. I also think the defense is doing a good job as well.
I think that they have an uphill battle because there is so much evidence here. We have pictures. We have a lot of corroboration. We have video. But what's standing out to me from the defense side is that they're really not defending the indefensible.
So they're taking responsibility for things that they know they have to take responsibility for, like the fact that the defendant engaged in domestic violence. It's on tape. So by standing up and taking responsibility for that on the defendant's behalf... That's preserving their credibility with the jury so that they can actually make other arguments about the law.
I also thought the defense was smart to not be overly aggressive with Ms. Ventura. We've seen defense attorneys make that mistake. in other sex crimes prosecutions. And I think what they were trying to do is just allow the messages to speak for themselves. So regardless of what Ms. Ventura may have said on any occasion or what the text messages say,
to the extent the jury is going to be persuaded by those messages, that's enough. They don't need to be standing up there attacking Ms. Ventura, who's eight and a half months pregnant and was clearly the victim of crimes, even if, according to the defense, not sex trafficking or racketeering.
Showing 41–60 of 110 · page 3 of 6
← Previous
Next →