He has hired private detectives as well as prominent defense lawyers who have said in court papers that they have “substantial information” that could “gravely undermine her credibility.” They have not provided any details.

In dozens of interviews with people who know her or are familiar with her life, the woman, now 32, is portrayed as an unassuming and hard-working single mother. The interviews were conducted in New York and in her homeland, Guinea, with relatives, neighbors, co-workers and former employers. The woman herself has stayed out of public view in recent weeks and has not spoken to reporters.

“She is a village girl who didn’t go to school to learn English, Greek, Portuguese, what have you,” said her older brother, 49, whose first name is Mamoudou. “All she learned was the Koran. Can you imagine how on earth she is suffering through this ordeal?”

“The place where she is now,” he added, “I don’t even know where it is.”

Religious Upbringing

The woman, the youngest of five children, was raised in a deeply religious household, according to Mamoudou and another brother, Mamadou, who is in his early 50s. Both brothers still live in a village called Thiakoulle, where they grew up with her.

(Guinea, in West Africa, is a mostly Muslim country, and many men from the woman’s ethnic group are called some variation of Mamadou, which is Muhammad in the local language, Fula. The New York Times generally does not identify people who say they have been victims of sexual assault. To protect the woman’s identity, The Times has also omitted the surnames of her relatives.)