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stepped out to call the district attorney’s office.
    Milcray told the following story.
    Leaving work for his meal break on the evening of the 1st, Milcray claimed to have taken a walk west, toward the Staples store on Union Square. On the street there he met a long-haired black woman who addressed him flirtatiously, saying as she passed, “You’re sexy!” and asking him if he modeled.
    He replied: “Where’s your man at?”
    She introduced herself as Veronique, and gave him her number and her address, inviting him to come by her West Village apartment around midnight, when he got off work.
    At 11:55 p.m. Milcray punched out of work and made his way across town, into a neighborhood that, according to his statement, he had never before visited. He got lost, made a call to her apartment from a pay phone, received further instructions, and found his way.
    Veronique, wearing a short robe, greeted him at the door of apartment one, 103 Corlears, and invited him in. The only light in the room came from the television, which she tuned to an erotic channel. For some period they sat beside each other on the futon, chatting, and then she invited him to take off his clothing, spreading a blanket in the narrow space between the futon and the low coffee table against the wall on the other side of the room, behind the entrance door. He reclined there and undressed, while Veronique stood at the edge of the blanket, at his feet, between Milcray and the door. Looking up, naked except for his socks, Milcray allegedly watched her open her robe, remove her shirt, and lower her panties. At which point he saw that she had a penis.
    He cried out, “What the fuck is this?” and “I’m outta here!,” to which Veronique replied, “Once it gets in, it’s not gonna hurt.” Milcray scrambled for his clothes while Veronique turned and put on a condom. She thrust Milcray to the floor on his back and lowered herself between his thighs. He, by this time, had managed to get his overalls partially on (up, he recalled, but he was uncertain if he had managed to fasten the bib). Bearing down on him, face to face, Veronique repeated her promise (“Once it gets in . . .”) and began working to raise his legs and strip him.
    At this point, Milcray explained, he went for his knife, opened it, and stabbed Veronique once in the chest. She, he asserted, did not relent, but bore down still more furiously and squeezed him to her body. He responded by reaching around with his right arm, over her back, in order to “hit him a few times,” eventually slipping out of the weakening grasp, putting on his shoes, grabbing up his bag and jacket, and escaping.
    In the street, he saw the extent of his hand injury, and the amount of blood on his white tee shirt. He ditched the latter, and dropped the knife, open, into a storm sewer at the corner of Christopher Street, before proceeding along that sidewalk and soliciting help from several shopkeepers and bystanders.
    Sheepishly, he admitted that the tale of the five white males had been an invention, asserting that he had lied out of fear.
    Milcray communicated this story to the detective orally, who then arranged for him to write the basic outline on a sheet of lined paper. While he did so (slowly, since his right hand was largely immobilized), the lead detective arranged for an assistant DA to come and videotape the statement, though it was now nearly midnight. She and the other detective reviewed the written statement and asked Milcray to add the location of the jettisoned weapon, so he drew a line from the mention of the knife in the body of the text, along the side of the page, to the bottom, where he put in a footnote: “in a rain-gate.”
    The video team arrived and set up, as did the assistant DA, who then conducted a forty-five-minute recorded interview with the suspect. This was later entered into evidence. In response to the ADA’s