A man accused of dressing as a firefighter and sexually assaulting a co-worker in her apartment bought items online for the attack, including firefighter's gear and chemicals to make smoke bombs, prosecutors said Thursday.

Jeremy Roybal, an eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ) official from San Jose, Calif., testified at Peter Braunstein's trial that company records showed the freelance journalist ordered a total of 750 milliliters of chloroform and four kilograms of potassium nitrate months before the 2005 Halloween attack.

Braunstein also bought firefighting gear, a gas mask, an obsolete Detroit police badge, a Fire Department of New York windshield sticker and a camcorder, said Roybal, a fraud investigator at eBay. He ordered other items, including a pellet gun, handcuffs, leg irons and a knife, from a sporting and hunting goods site, said John T. Turner, the site's chief financial officer.

Braunstein, 43, is accused of using the potassium nitrate to create fire and smoke bombs in the hallway outside the apartment of a 34-year-old former co-worker at Fairchild Publications, publishers of Women's Wear Daily and W magazine. Prosecutors say he dressed in firefighter's clothing, banged on her door and sexually assaulted her when he got inside.

Justice Thomas Farber also decided Thursday that evidence from Braunstein's computer showing his searches for things like "rape" and "chloroform" and "bondage" could be presented to the jury.

Though Braunstein has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, burglary, sex abuse and robbery, his lawyers concede he attacked the woman, but they say he is mentally ill and therefore should not be held criminally responsible.

When he was captured on the University of Memphis campus Dec. 16, 2005, after six weeks on the run, Braunstein stabbed himself in the neck with a dagger. He was subdued by police with pepper spray and arrested.