Testimony by ``certain participants'' in an alleged sexual encounter at the firehouse was ``unacceptable and patently false,'' DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn said in a statement issued Thursday.
``Those firefighters and their lawyers were told that DOI was prepared to take steps necessary to make a criminal perjury referral,'' Hearn said. ``In light of that fact and, fortunately, those firefighters have contacted us through their attorneys and indicated they are coming back to recant false testimony.''
Hearn did not name the firefighters who had decided to recant, but newspaper reports identified them as Tony DeLuca, 34, and Anthony Loscuito, 27.
Allegations of sexual misconduct at the firehouse, nicknamed the ``Animal House,'' emerged after a 34-year-old woman called an ambulance last week and reported being raped by several on-duty firefighters.
The woman later recanted her story, saying the sex was consensual, and then returned to her original account that she had been raped. DeLuca, Loscuito and a third firefighter, Christian Waugh, 30, have been suspended without pay pending the outcome of the probe.
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