MARTINEZ, Calif. -- Contra Costa County Senior Deputy District Attorney Michael Gressett pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he raped and sodomized a fellow prosecutor in May.
The charges, which were filed Friday in Martinez, include two counts rape, four counts sodomy, three counts forced sexual penetration, one count forced oral copulation, one count false imprisonment and one count of making criminal threats for allegedly threatening to kill the alleged victim, according to the complaint.
Gressett, 51, also faces multiple enhancements for allegedly tying up the alleged victim and using a handgun and an ice pick during the alleged assault.
If convicted, Gressett could face a life sentence, Deputy Attorney General Peter Flores said.
Because Gressett is a county prosecutor, the state attorney general's office was prosecuting the case.
"As firmly and uncategorically as anyone has ever entered a not guilty plea, we enter a not guilty plea," Gressett's attorney Michael Cardoza said in court.
"This false accusation has shaken me to the core," Gressett told a swarm of reporters outside the courthouse. "I know that the accuser knows these accusations are not true."
Gressett, who was one of the top sex crimes prosecutors in the county and has been an attorney since 1987, said that after so many years of prosecuting "bad guys and fighting to get ... the truth out" it was extremely difficult and painful to be on the other side.
The fact the he was falsely accused and that the state would take the investigation as far as they have, Gressett claimed, has shaken his faith in the criminal justice system.
"He didn't do anything to force sex upon this woman," Cardoza said.
According to Cardoza, Gressett and his accuser had a consensual romantic relationship on May 8 when the alleged assault occurred.
The woman waited four and a half months before reporting the alleged assault and then came forward with her accusations just after she found out her contract to work for the district attorney's office was not going to be renewed, Cardoza said.
Because she waited so long to report the alleged assault, all of the exculpatory evidence was gone, Cardoza said.
Gressett and his accuser had allegedly sent text messages to each other that would have revealed the nature of their relationship, but by the time she accused Gressett, those text messages had been deleted from the system, Cardoza said.
"As a prosecutor she would know that," Cardoza said.
Flores declined to comment on the reasons why the victim waited so long to report the alleged assault and declined to characterize the nature of their relationship.
The allegations were being investigated by the state attorney general's office, the Martinez Police Department and the district attorney's office, according to standard protocol, Flores said.
Cardoza, however, said he believed the district attorney's office should have stayed out of the investigation.
Gressett was arrested Oct. 2 and remains out of custody on $1 million bail. He was also ordered to stay away from the alleged victim.
Ahh, yes.. another caught in their own net.. good luck there dude, but ofcourse people like you don't need luck.. you have the system in your hand. And I thought that they are alleged victims until guilt is proven.. biased media again..
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