Commonwealth v. Helberg

After a jury trial in the Superior Court, the defendant was convicted on six charges of rape of a child and six charges of indecent assault and battery on a child.1 As often occurs in such cases, the trial rested largely on the credibility of the child victims’ testimony. On appeal, the defendant contends that, in closing argument, the prosecutor improperly urged the *176jury to consider that the children’s testimony should be believed because they had no motive to lie. We conclude that the prosecutor’s argument was permissible, and affirm the convictions.

Background. We summarize the evidence…