Victim forced to walk naked down street describes boyfriend’s abuse
The Florida woman who was forced to walk naked down a frigid Harlem street by her unhinged boyfriend bravely took the stand against him Monday, telling jurors how she’d planned to leave the jealous monster in the days before the incident.
The 24-year-old threw Jason Melo a steely glance before she began to describe his years of abuse, which included calling her a “whore” and throwing her phones out the apartment window in envious fits of rage.
Melo cowardly stared down at the defense table as the woman, whose name is being withheld, walked in​ ​–​ ​even going so far as to limply leaf through some papers in front of him to avoid looking at the mother of his child.
“He made it very clear to me many times that we were not together, he said that many times–that he didn’t love me,” she said softly as Melo avoided eye contact.
“He broke several phones of mine,” the woman, who moved back to Florida after the incident, told jurors. “It would be over stupid things. One time he didn’t like a picture I took, so he threw my phone out the window.”
She described another incident, at a family party, where Melo’s uncle asked her to dance, and then Melo forced her to leave and derided her as a “whore” on the way home. On another instance, he bit her cheek in anger, she told jurors.
“I was going to leave,” she said of the days leading up to the incident.
Jurors earlier heard that Melo punched the then-22-year-old in the face before forcing her into the street wearing boots and a towel in January 2016, after he allegedly found pictures of other men on her phone.
In footage that horrified the city, but which has since been removed from Instagram, Melo could be seen following the woman, her thin frame wrapped in a bath towel, down the block while he berates her in Spanish.
Jurors Monday watched the disturbing two-minute clip, in which Melo reaches out and yanks the towel away, forcing the naked woman to seek refuge between two parked cars as she attempts to cover herself.
“This is what you deserve,” he shouts. She eventually wraps herself in a dirty-looking motorcycle cover as he continues to film her.
Melo faces up to seven years behind bars if convicted on the top count of felony coercion.