NORTHAMPTON — A day after closing remarks by the prosecution and defense in the trial of a Southampton man who faces more than two dozen charges, including rape, kidnapping and assault with a dangerous weapon, jurors spent the better part of Tuesday deliberating without reaching a verdict.
Mathieu J. Tebo, a former mortgage loan officer, is facing 26 charges over a series of incidents allegedly perpetrated against three women that occurred between 2016 and 2022.
In closing statements on Monday inside Hampshire Superior Court, Assistant District Attorney Sandra Staub implored the jury to see the truth — asking members to recall if the three women seemed to have fabricated their testimonies. Compare that to Tebo, who she said admitted to lying during his testimonies and who could not “keep the simplest details straight.”
“Your life experience and your common sense give you everything you need to determine which evidence is credible …,” Staub said. “You saw each of these women in this courtroom testify, did they seem truthful to you?”
On the other hand, Tebo’s defense attorney, Aliki Recklitis, said that all three women were capable of handling themselves, highlighting that following the dates of Tebo’s accused sexual assaults, the “independent” women continuously tried to maintain their relationships with him, even allowing Tebo to spend time with their family.
She argued no one would try to keep communicating with someone who sexually assaulted them and were fueled by jealousy, anger and embarrassment from Tebo cheating on them. In one instance, Tebo claims that one woman invited herself to his house while Tebo was with the woman he had cheated on her with, with Recklitis citing texts that show this exchange.
“It is more likely if Mr. Tebo had been a rapist,” Recklitis said about one of the women, “she would not have felt comfortable with him being around” her family.
The trial began in late October with Staub presenting a narrative to the jury that the accusations, made against Tebo by the women, followed a similar pattern: All were single mothers at the time they met Tebo, all found him initially “charming” before he later became controlling and abusive toward them. All described how, in addition to demanding access to their phone and social media accounts, Tebo would perform degrading sex acts on them and become physically violent, even after they told him to stop.
Recklitis presented a different narrative to the jury in the opening statements, arguing that Tebo was a lousy lover — even referring to him as “the world’s worst boyfriend” and discussing the multiple times he cheated on them — but that the sexual acts described by the women had been consensual. She said the charges were a result of coordinated revenge with a potential cash out from a lawsuit by the women, due to Tebo’s repeated infidelity.
The three women and Tebo all testified during the course of the trial. As a matter of policy, the Gazette does not identify victims or alleged victims of sexual assaults or rape.
In her closing argument on Monday, Staub said several of the women tried to make it work with Tebo in different ways, setting up rules and increasing communications.
The women claim Tebo forced them to give phone access, but Recklitis said it was a mutual agreement and they were never forced.
Similarly, she argued that the “rough” and “aggressive” sexual acts were consensual and agreed upon, citing multiple sexts between Tebo and some of the women after the accusation dates.
One of the women who agreed to this testified it was not what was expected and Tebo would not stop after she asked him to.
Tebo’s relationship with two of the women took place between 2016 and 2017, and the other, around 2022. Recklitis questioned why the first two waited until the third woman spoke out, then compared notes.
Staub said there was no evidence of comparing notes and the women were frightened to come out with their claims. However, upon learning that other women had similar experiences, they then wanted to hold Tebo accountable for his actions. She questioned after years of Tebo bad-mouthing the women why his tone change when the trial started.
“Did you see each of them testify? Did it look like this was a good thing for anything or did it look like it cost them something to sit here and relive the details of these events …?” she said. “On the other hand, (the) defendant has 26 powerful motivators (to lie) … hasn’t he spent years of avoiding accountability and bad-mouthing these women?”
After Tebo’s relationship with one woman started to “become more serious,” Staub explained that Tebo started to ask “dark” questions and he became too invasive, accusing her of lying about her sexual history.
Looking through her phone, Tebo would badger her and the woman agreed to allow Tebo to see her phone’s location. In one instance, he continuously questioned her about a “gas station stop.” During these interrogations, she said there were instances of alcohol and cocaine use by Tebo.
The woman testified that if she did not comply with Tebo or give satisfactory answers, he would give “sexual punishments.”
For instance, she claims Tebo forced her to stage an audio recording in which the woman was exploring the dark web and making verbal comments while doing so. He wanted the recording to use as leverage and threatened to use it to hurt her reputation and career if she did not oblige him in the future. Staub reminded the jury of the woman’s testimony in which she stated Tebo kept telling her to use a “normal voice,” during the recording.
On the other hand, Recklitis pointed out that the alleged sexual assault took place after the recording had been made. She questioned why Tebo would do this, saying that he had not committed sexual assault at this point, therefore did not need any leverage.
After the recording was made, she described the accused sexual assault with Tebo in which he strangled her to the point where she could not speak. Staub explained during the testimony the woman was able to scream for a brief moment at which point Tebo became angry and stopped to make sure that nobody heard.
The same woman testified that Tebo had made death threats to her and her child and after trying to make the relationship work, could not continue, but never called the authorities because she was worried that her former partner would find out.
Recklitis said the logical thing to do would be to call the police.
Tebo’s trial had been delayed when his previous attorney, Judith Knight of Great Barrington, had her license to practice law suspended after she had misused clients. Tebo had been free on bail before the start of the trial, although he has had to comply with several conditions such as wearing a GPS monitoring bracelet and staying away from the three women.
The jury is expected to continue deliberations Wednesday morning.