BRIDGEPORT — Testimony began Monday in the retrial of former city assistant fire chief Harold Clarke Sr., accused of beating and raping a woman in his home in 2022 .

Last July a Superior Court jury of four woman and two men deliberated the case for three days before announcing it was hopelessly deadlocked on the charge of first-degree sexual assault . The jury did find Clarke not guilty of aggravated sex assault , finding the state had not proved that Clarke was aided by two or more other persons in the crime.

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In this second trial before a new jury and Judge Robin Pavia, Clarke is charged with first-degree sexual assault and second-degree sexual assault.

Clarke is free on $200,000 bond.

During the previous week-long trial the complainant, a military veteran who was wounded in Operation Desert Storm, testified that on the evening of Feb. 16, 2022, she had run into Clarke, a family friend, at a city bar.

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She testified she was concerned Clarke was intoxicated and, when he refused to relinquish his car keys, she offered to follow him home.

When they got to his home, she testified Clarke invited her inside and gave her a glass of water. The woman testified she called her partner to let her know she was heading home soon but soon after drinking the water, the woman said she became disoriented and unable to stand.

At that point, she said other unidentified men came to Clarke’s home and the three of them repeatedly beat her and dragged her to a bedroom where they raped her.

Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Edward Lee Miller showed the jury photographs showing numerous bruises on the woman’s face, body and limbs. Photos shown the jury revealed that Clarke also had bruises on him the prosecution said was consistent with the victim’s claims that she had attempted to fight him off.

The woman’s partner testified she went to Clarke’s home looking for the woman and found her lying partially dressed on his front lawn. She said she took the woman to the hospital.

State DNA expert Steven Bryant testified Clarke’s DNA was present on the victim.

DNA of at least two other people was also found on the woman and at the scene, but those people remain unidentified.

Miller told the jury in his final argument that as far as the unidentified alleged assailants, the investigation remains open.

The 59-year-old Clarke, who retired from the Fire Department after 34 years just before his arrest, testified that he and the woman has consensual sex and that he had tried to calm her after she became violent afterwards.

Of his client’s testimony that he has used cocaine most of his adult life, including while he was on the fire department, his lawyer, Christopher Cerami told the jury, “He told you everything about himself, the good, the bad, the ugly but he is not on trial for what many would consider being inappropriate.”