Battered Transgendered Model Under Fire on Witness Stand

A New York City firefighter has been charged with physically assaulting his transgender model girlfriend outside a strip club, but the alleged victim's testimony has attracted media attention.

The New York Daily News reports that Taylor Murphy, 29, has been accused of beating, biting and choking Claudia Charriez, 31, after they got into an argument outside of FlashDancers, a strip club in midtown Manhattan, on Aug. 6, 2011. Prosecutors say that Murphy, who is 6-foot-4 and 245 pounds and was "Mr. March" on an unofficial FDNY calendar, threw his girlfriend into a phone booth, dragged her by her hair and then choked her outside the joint.

The Daily News points out that Charriez, who was a former contestant on Tyra Banks' hit reality show "America's Next Top Model," was wearing "black pumps, a pants suit and [a] low-cut dress shirt" and was "visibly shaken and stressed and near tears at times" when she began her testimony last Thursday. Murphy was also reportedly emotional as he wiped tears from his eyes when Charriez spoke.

The model explained how the two met and said Murphy knew she was born a man as he had TiVo'd the "Top Model" episodes Charriez appeared in. She also told the court how Murphy was extremely upset that she worked as an escort and that one night the firefighter broke a chair in her apartment after she met a client for a "date."

When Murphy's lawyer questioned Charriez about her sexual activity, including contracting a sexually transmitted disease, the model apparently broke down, the Daily News points out in a second article about the strange case.

"You (worked as an escort) knowing that you could potentially transmit that disease?" defense attorney Jason Berland asked.

"I was an escort, not a prostitute. I do not have sex for money," Charriez replied. "Whether or not I chose to engage in sexual activity with someone - protected - was my choice," she said. "What does this have anything to do with him hurting me?"

As the cross-examination continued, Charriez admitted to still loving Murphy and to sending several text messages to the firefighter after the alleged attack, the Daily Mail (U.K.) reports. Some of the messages said that she loved him but others were quite the opposite: "Enjoy sucking your cell mate's dick," one message read.

"I do love you," she yelled at Murphy, who did not make eye contact with his former lover and looked at his hands instead.

Charriez lost control of her emotions, however, when the lawyer brought up her deceased ex-boyfriend, which was the root of several arguments between the model and Murphy.

"You shouldn't talk about dead people," she yelled and was escorted out of the courtroom. Berland then asked if she was taking estrogen when the couple fought.

"I don't need hormone therapy because at a very young age I was castrated," she said.

To add to the debauchery, a mystery woman waved articles on the case and the 2011 colander Murphy posed in and yelled, "I love you Taylor!" before she was brought out of the courtroom.