In the affidavit, Rooney wrote that the coolershad been stolen from a "locked, walk-in"refrigerator. In his testimony, however, thewell-tanned lieutenant acknowledged the walk-inrefrigerator he referred to was likely not awalk-in, and he could not be sure that the coolershad been stored in the refrigerator at all.

"I thought...it was true then," Rooney said.

In addition, Rooney acknowledged that he hadbeen incorrect when he argued in an August 12probable cause hearing that the coolers had comefrom the refrigerated room.

Rooney told defense attorneys in crossexamination that his initial description in apolice report of the coolers as "orange igloocoolers" was also incorrect. Instead, the coolerswere brown plastic with a clear bottle perched ontop.

While volleying Holman's pointed queries,Rooney also made some of the most damningallegations of the day against Perry and Auterio.

The lieutenant said that both guards changedtheir stories during his interviews with them thissummer. Rooney said that while Perry at firstindicated he acted alone in taking a cooler out ofan area which the guard believed was reserved fortrash, he later implicated Auterio.

And Auterio, Rooney charged, first said that hehad taken two coolers himself before laterrecanting and saying he took only one watercooler.

Perry and Auterio have yet to testify and willnot comment on specifics until after they havedone so. But the two men are likely to say thatwhile they made a mistake by taking the coolersout of an unlocked area used for "trash," they didnot intend to steal anything. Auterio may testifythat he removed a cooler from a trash dumpster onthe loading dock next to Harkness Commons.

The lone eyewitness to the alleged theftwas Mark Urciuoli, a Prospect Cleaners employeewho until recently worked nights as a cleaner atthe Law School.

Testifying for the prosecution, Urciuoli atfirst refused to say he'd seen anything out of asecond-floor Pound Hall window on the night ofJune 10. At one point, a clearly frustrated MarcA. Eichler, the assistant district attorney, askedthe judge's permission to treat his own starwitness as hostile.

Speaking almost inaudibly, Urciuoli eventuallyrecounted how he had looked out the window as heset up for a special Law School event and at thatpoint saw Perry and Auterio each carry a watercooler to Auterio's red pick-up truck.

In cross-examination, defense attorneyssuggested that Eichler had been pressured byRooney into reporting to have seen the two guardscarrying the water coolers. The attorneys chargedthat Rooney had in fact intimidated Urciuoli byfirst asking him whether he had stolen anythingfrom the Law School himself.

Both Rooney and Eichler denied that suggestion."I didn't say anything like that," Rooney said.

Urciuoli's testimony contradicted Rooney's in anumber of details. Perhaps most noteworthy wasthat while the lieutenant said he had spoken withUrciuoli several times before the alleged theft,Urciuoli said he had never met Rooney before theirinterview on the guards' matter.

Rooney also testified that he had interviewedUrciuoli as part of a series of interviews withHarvard employees who had reported larcenies. ButUrciuoli, Holman noted, is neither a Harvardemployee nor had he reported a larceny.