“The gun was a prop in role play,” said Clarke, who said he placed his 40-caliber Glock in the woman’s mouth while she simulated oral sex. “It was not degrading. It was not violent. It was not threatening.”

“It was playful, it was meant to be sexual,” James Clarke, 45, testified at his rape trial in Suffolk Superior Court, describing how he handcuffed the 21-year-old woman behind her back on July 26, 2017, while they were parked at the Government Center Garage.

An IRS agent accused of handcuffing a college intern and raping her at gunpoint testified Wednesday that their encounter was “playful” and that the woman told him she wanted to have sex inside his car after hours of drinking at a Boston bar.


During cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Ian Polumbaum challenged Clarke’s account and asked him why he initially told police that his gun may only have brushed the woman’s face. The prosecutor suggested that Clarke didn’t tell investigators that he put the gun in the woman’s mouth until after he learned it had been taken for testing and realized that her saliva might be found on it. The woman’s DNA profile was found on the gun, and there were injuries to the back of her throat, according to prosecutors.

Clarke said when he first spoke to police, the morning after the incident, it “was a nightmare” because he had just learned he was being accused of sexual assault. He declined a police request to record that interview but said he was forthcoming.

“I spilled my guts,” Clarke said. He said he believed he told police during the first interview that he had placed the gun in front of the woman’s face and it “may have been in her mouth.” He said he provided more details in a later interview.


Jurors are expected to hear closing arguments Thursday in Clarke’s trial on charges of aggravated rape, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and indecent assault and battery. At the time of the incident, he was assigned to the IRS’s criminal investigations office in Boston and worked on a Drug Enforcement Administration task force. He was placed on leave after his indictment in March 2018.

The woman, who was working as an IRS intern that summer, has testified that Clarke invited her for drinks on the last day of her internship. She assumed co-workers would join them and was surprised when he arrived alone. She said he bought her five or six mixed drinks at the Kinsale pub, located across the street from the IRS office, then attacked her in his car after offering her a ride to South Station to catch a bus home.

She told jurors that she was terrified when he handcuffed her and shoved his gun so far into her mouth that she had difficulty breathing. She called 911 after Clarke dropped her off at South Station and reported that she had been sexually assaulted.

The Globe doesn’t identify victims of sexual assault without their consent.

Taking the stand for the second day Wednesday, Clarke tried to refute the woman’s account and characterized her as a willing partner who flirted with him as they drank for five hours and told him they could still “have fun” even though he was married.

Clarke said the woman said she could stay out all night, but he told her he had to get home.


“I have children,” Clarke testified. “I had to be home at some point. I couldn’t be out all night drinking.”

Clarke said he and the woman held hands as they walked to his car and she told him that she had wanted to have sex with him from the first time she saw him. Once inside his government-issued car with tinted windows, he said, he removed his gun from its holster because it was in his way as he pressed against the woman. He said he removed the magazine and emptied the chamber and showed her it wasn’t loaded.

He admitted that he digitally penetrated her while she was handcuffed but insisted it was consensual and that she told him she liked pain.

“At some point, it was getting extremely hot and heavy when I said, ‘Let’s take a break,’ ” Clarke said. He said the woman wanted to have sex in the backseat but he declined because he didn’t think it was “the right time or place.”

Instead, he said, he retrieved his gun and placed it in her mouth while she was still handcuffed.

The prosecutor also pressed Clarke about his interaction with a woman who was hosting a trivia event at the Kinsale that night. She testified that Clarke showed her his weapon in the bar and repeatedly hip-checked her. Jurors were shown a video of Clarke repeatedly bumping the woman as he delivered answers to trivia questions on slips of paper.


Clarke said he had no recollection of showing the trivia host his gun at the bar and didn’t think he had done so. He said he didn’t remember hip-checking her either, but after watching the video he said it looked like “a playful bump.”

Shelley Murphy can be reached at shelley.murphy@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @shelleymurph.