In this image from a surveillance video taken outside an alleged rape victim's building a police officer is seen escorting a woman inside. (Image courtesy: Manhattan District Attorney's Office)

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Grainy images on a building surveillance tape have become key evidence in the case against two NYPD officers accused of rape.

CBS 2’s Pablo Guzman reports on what the tape shows and what it could mean for the officers’ case and that of the alleged victim.

https://newyork.cbslocal.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/14578484/2011/04/nypdrapetrialpapa.mp3 1010 WINS’ Juliet Papa has the latest on the trial

The attorneys for both sides spent most of Friday morning at the trial going over the video. It happened while Heather Millstone was on the stand. It was her bar, “Heathers,” that had the cameras next to the building of the woman who said Officer Kenneth Moreno raped her in her apartment. The defense jumped on the first image, which seems to show the woman walking without much help.

“Thank God for that videotape,” said Moreno attorney Joseph Tacopina.

“If we didn’t have that video, you would get the impression that she’s being dragged into the building unconscious. And, uh, you know: picture says a thousand words I think I’ve heard before.”

But prosecutors used the tape to make the jurors ask the question: why did the cops keep coming back?

So the case will probably turn not on the tape, but on the woman’s presence on the stand, which could happen as early as Monday.

“We’re gonna ask questions. And, she’s gonna have to answer the questions we ask. And I expect the jury’s gonna have quite a few doubts after we’re done asking her questions,” said Ed Mandery, attorney for Officer Franklin Mata, the man accused of being the lookout.

It’s clear Tacopina and Mandery are not concerned with pushing the envelope with a woman who has said she was raped.

At the end of the day, one of the woman’s closest friends took the stand. She said the day after the alleged rape, she noticed ties for the curtains had been removed, and were on the couch. The district attorney showed the jury that photo.

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