Alleged serial rapist goes on trial for assaults of 7 women he offered rides to outside Boston bars

Prosecutors say Alvin Campbell lingered outside Boston bars in his black SUV, posing as an Uber driver, looking to offer rides to intoxicated women so he could sexually assault them.

He's facing trial on rape, sexual assault and kidnapping charges in Suffolk Superior Court this week, accused of targeting seven women over a three year period. In many cases, he is accused of filming the alleged assaults.

Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Erin Murphy told the jury that Campbell had a "type": women who were so drunk that they couldn't protect themselves.

"It was precisely because of who he chose that he was able to get away with it for so long," she said in her opening statement. "In most cases, these were women who would have little or no memory of who he was or what he had done."

But Campbell's attorney, Andrew Courossi, said a lack of memory doesn't mean Campbell assaulted them. A few times to the jury, he called the alleged assaults "hookups."

"The evidence will show you that the fact that they don't, or may not remember, doesn't mean that they were incapacitated such that they weren't able to consent," Courossi said.

In 2017 — three years before Campbell was ultimately arrested — two women who lived together reported to Boston police that Campbell sexually assaulted them after talking to them at a bar and following them home to their apartment. But he was never charged. A WBUR investigation found that four women total reported similar assaults now linked to Campbell before he was finally charged in 2020.

Experts told WBUR that the case is an example of how law enforcement often fails to take action when people report sexual assaults. A study sponsored by the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice found that fewer than 1 in 5 rapes reported to police leads to an arrest.

One victim reported that even when she went to Boston police to report her alleged assault, she encountered resistance. The now 32-year-old Boston woman testified Monday that she was picked up by Campbell outside the Harp bar near North Station in December 2019 after a work holiday party. She remembered nothing about the encounter until waking up the next morning in Campbell's bedroom in Cumberland, Rhode Island.

The next day, after getting a sexual assault evidence collection exam at Mass. General Hospital, she went to Boston police headquarters with a cousin to report what she said was rape.

"They said since the crime happened in Rhode Island I'd have to report it in Rhode Island," she testified. She recalled her cousin told police, "We're not leaving until someone takes her statement. She didn't willingly choose to go to Rhode Island."

Eventually, an officer took her statement and Boston police sexual assault detectives investigated the allegations. That investigation led to Campbell's arrest, the search of his phone and the discovery of videos Campbell himself allegedly had captured of the encounters.

Those videos are key to the case. Murphy, the prosecutor, told the jury to look carefully at those videos, which she said are "evidence of Alvin Campbell's crimes."

"The video will show you that Alvin Campbell knew exactly what he was doing," she said. "He knew, or a reasonable person would have known, that these women were too intoxicated to consent to intercourse. As you watch these videos, ask yourselves: Does what you see look mutual and participatory? Or does something look not quite right?"

Courossi, however, said the videos will show that the sex was consensual and that the women were not incapacitated.

He said in some cases, the women texted with or got rides from Campbell after the alleged assaults. And most did not report the incidents to police. It was only when videos and photos were discovered on Campbell's phone after his 2020 arrest that detectives began reaching out to possible victims.

Campbell has been in jail since his arrest six years ago. The trial has been plagued by delays, including issues Campbell had with his defense attorneys.

He is the estranged brother of state Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who has said she is praying for the survivors.