The three magazine salesmen charged with raping a 19-year-old Concord woman in March admitted to the police that they had sex with her and said they had taken it "too far." The police believe the salesmen may have reduced the woman's defenses by lacing her drink with a drug.

The three suspects, who were arrested in Maryland on April 1, were arraigned yesterday in Concord District Court on rape charges. Prosecutor Scott Murray asked Judge Michael Sullivan for high bail, arguing, in part, that the men's door-to-door sales operation was a front for criminal activity.

"Fidelity Reader Service (the company the men sold magazines for) appears to be a cover for an organization which engages in home invasion, burglary, theft and sexual assault," Murray said. "There is an extreme threat to the public."

Sullivan obliged and set bail for Cassidy Coburn, 19, of Monroe, Utah, at $1 million; bail for Christopher (Tobias) Armstrong, 23, of Jonesboro, Ark., at $1.5 million; and bail for Joseph Haniffy, 24, of Chicopee, Mass. at $3 million. Haniffy was described in a police affidavit as the organizer of the group.

During his arraignment, which, like the others, was done from jail by video camera, Haniffy protested the description. "You're making me sound like John Gotti," he told Murray. When he heard his bail was $3 million, Haniffy said, "It's crazy. It's nuts."

The victim watched the proceedings from the courtroom yesterday but did not speak. She did talk with the police shortly after the assault in late March and described for them in detail the nearly two hours she spent with the three men. Her account was released yesterday in a police affidavit.

The men entered the woman's apartment building on March 28 by picking a lock at the main door, according to the affidavit. (The police have not said where the woman was living.) They knocked on her door around 6 p.m. She was home alone at the time because her roommate was at work and answered the knock to find two men, Coburn and Armstrong, selling magazines.

The two showed the woman order forms and paperwork from the Better Business Bureau to prove their magazine operation was legitimate. They stepped inside the apartment and asked the woman for something to drink. According to the affidavit, they drank most of the beer from the refrigerator and offered her one too, with the cap off.

The woman told the police that she thought it was okay to drink the beer because it had come from her own house. Within five to 10 minutes, however, she became lightheaded and had trouble concentrating and focusing. She told Coburn and Armstrong that she did not feel well, according to the affidavit.

Coburn and Armstrong then put the woman in a chokehold and told her to smile for photographs. The woman told the police they took photos of her with Coburn and then with Armstrong. Then Haniffy arrived inside the apartment and things changed, according to the woman's statement to the police.

"It was not exactly magazine sales anymore," the woman told the police, according to the affidavit. "She stated that she was scared and didn't want to be there with three guys that she didn't know. She stated that she told them that they had to go and that they could come back when her roommate came home and that she would give them money then."

The men didn't leave.

Haniffy grabbed the woman by the arm and took her into the bathroom, where he made her perform oral sex, according to the affidavit. The woman rushed from the bathroom back to her living room and tried to call a friend for help. The three men then pulled her into her bedroom, shut the door, turned off the lights and raped her, according to the affidavit.

She told them to stop and that they were hurting her, the affidavit said. They told her she was okay. (next page »)