Cell phone company records indicate Dr. James Corasanti sent and received nearly 80 text messages the day Alexandria Rice was killed. But by the time investigators seized Corasanti's phone, most of them were gone.
Amherst Police Technical Services Officer Thomas Barillari testified legal procedures kept investigators from seizing Corasanti's phone until August 1, nearly three weeks after Rice was struck and killed along Heim Road.
The phone was shipped to an FBI computer forensic lab in Texas, but Barillari said only about a dozen messages from early July 8 were found. The rest had been deleted and could not be retrieved.
Investigators also seized the phones of the two colleagues Corasanti was texting right before the accident. Physician's assistant Christine Micciarello said she deleted Corasanti's texts without reading them. Micciarello testified she never told to do so by Corasanti or his defense team.
The next witness, medical assistant Bonnie Warsaw, admitted she was texting Corasanti several times before the accident about arranging an office party. The doctor sent her a text at 11:19 p.m. and again at 11:23. The 9-1-1 call came in at 11:21 p.m.
Warsaw said when she thought about texting Corasanti close to the accident she "felt sad," re-read the texts several times, and then deleted them because "she couldn't take it anymore." The day after the crash, Warsaw said Corasanti told her "I never saw her, I never saw her" and later told her "I thought I was okay to drive that night."
The doctor's colleagues were not cross-examined by the defense. The trial resumes Friday morning.
