Defense claims woman wanted drug slipped into drink

A man accused of trying to slip a tranquilizer into his date's drink at a Colorado Springs restaurant last year will tell jurors when he testifies that the woman wanted to be drugged, his attorney said Tuesday during opening statements in the trial.

Robert Psaty, 57, a clinician at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo and a former Florence City Council member, is charged with two felonies in connection with the Jan. 3, 2008, incident at a Ruby Tuesday on Garden of the Gods Road.

According to an arrest affidavit, a waiter spotted Psaty putting a pill into Nancy McGrath's drink and crushing it up after she left their table to go to the salad bar. The waiter removed the drink before she returned and called police.

"It was so obvious what I was seeing," the waiter, Colt Haugen testified. "That's the reason I spoke up ... I was willing to put my job on the line."

Jurors will hear a different story when Psaty takes the stand. According to his attorney Joe Koncilja, McGrath told Psaty, whom she had met on an online dating Web site, that she was bipolar and asked him to give her a Valium if she became too hyperactive during dinner.

Koncilja told jurors the waiter overreacted in calling police, which he attributed to the waiter having a relative who was a victim of date-rape. McGrath, he continued, has been convicted in the past of falsifying prescriptions to obtain narcotics.

The amount of drug in that one pill was so small, Koncilja said, it would be the equivalent of "bringing a nail file to a gun fight."

McGrath, the prosecution's first witness, denied giving Psaty the anxiety relief medication or asking him to spike her drink.

"I didn't even have a prescription for (Valium). Why would I do that," said McGrath, 48.

McGrath said she did not leave with Psaty that night, after police questioned him at the restaurant, and said "I never wanted to speak with him for as long as I lived."

On cross-examination, Koncilja accused McGrath of lying on her online dating profile, failing to mention she had felony convictions and that she suffered from a mental disease.

"What I'm going at right now is your memory of that whole evening," Koncilja said.

Psaty was put on leave as a mental health clinician at the Colorado Mental Health Institute in Pueblo the day of his arrest.

He was able to pass a background check in applying at the hospital because prior criminal convictions for false imprisonment and disorderly conduct were wiped from his record after he successfully completed deferred sentences.

Psaty has pleaded not-guilty and remains free on $3,000 bail. The trial is expected to last most of the week.