"Rape on Trial" talks about the details of the real situation.
“With regard to the Big Dan’s defendants, there was a continued focus on dramatic and personal information, but coverage also shifted slightly toward their Portuguese heritage and community. In addition, sexual history evidence was excluded from the trial, thus eliminating the source of much “character” evidence about the victim and significantly altering the coverage of that element of the case… Although many stories questioned the victim’s character, many others included only positive or neutral information about her background and behavior.”
One way that the movie is drastically different from the real story is the race and ethnicity of the victim and the rapists. At the place and time of the event, the race and ethnicity of the rapist and victim was extremely important to the community
“The Accused loses much of its historical specificity by choosing not to engage the unique ethnic, cultural, and class tensions that plagued the economically depressed city of New Bedford in the early 1980s. These factors do not excuse or mitigate a gang rape but they need to be addressed to understand the debased moral and psychological atmosphere of a place like Big Dan’s Tavern.” (Niemi 415-416)
Although the movie loses its historical specifity, the director and writers determinded the ethnicities not to be as important as other issues in the movie.