The Denver Post
Bryant prosecutor: It was "strong case"
Thursday, September 09, 2004 - Basketball star Kobe Bryant admitted in a taped interview with investigators that he put his hand on his accuser's neck and bent her over a chair to have sex with her, saying it was "just my thing," according to a prosecutor in the case.
Bryant initially denied having sex with the 19-year-old woman at all and later said it was consensual, although he told investigators he thought he was in trouble, prosecutor Dana Easter said Wednesday. "He did talk about having his hand on the back of her neck and the other hand on her waist and bending her over a chair," Easter said. "He said, 'That's just my thing. That's what I do."' Prosecutors last week dropped the sexual-assault case against Bryant, after his accuser indicated that she would not go forward. "She went through some really hard times trying to get to the point where she could do this," Easter said. "I think she tried really hard, and it just overwhelmed her in the end." No longer bound by court gag orders, prosecutors are speaking out to tell the woman's story in a case that appeared weak because of the lack of information available. "I will tell you that this was a very strong case," said Easter, a sex-assault specialist who was on loan to the Eagle County district attorney's office from Jefferson County. "I really do want to get some justice for this young woman." Bryant's attorney, Pamela Mackey, vehemently disputed the depiction.
Click here for a timeline of the People v. Bryant case.
Click here for the official court website with officials court orders, filings and documents in the case.
Click here to see a copy of the felony charges against Bryant in the PDF format. The charges were dropped Sept. 1.
Click here for the questions that were asked asked of potential jurors in the case.
Click here for an interactive presentation on Bryant's career.
Click here for the 9NEWS archive on the case.
Click here for the CourtTV archive on the case.
"It's libelous, slanderous and untrue," she said. "She is cooking up this stuff, and you are the agent of her lies and misstatements. ... She's out for Kobe's blood. She wants to ruin him, and she wants to use you ... to do that." Defense attorneys had fought unsuccessfully to keep the tape, which was surreptitiously recorded, from being admitted at trial. The contents of the interview have never been made public, although attorneys for media organizations continue the legal battle for full access. The woman, a front-desk clerk at the upscale Lodge & Spa at Cordillera near Edwards where the incident occurred in June 2003, had engaged in mutual flirting with the basketball star and even consensual hugging and kissing in his room, Eagle County sheriff's Detective Doug Winters testified at a preliminary hearing in October. "But the minute he started groping her, she was struggling to get away. And then he put both of his hands around her throat," Easter said. "She was immediately totally under his control. And then he turned her around and marched her over to the chair and bent her over. But she had said 'no' repeatedly, and she had said it the second that the groping started." The defense suggested that the woman's injuries could have been consistent with sex with "three different men in three days." His attorneys pointed to her admission of having sex two days earlier and to the pair of underpants stained with another man's semen that she wore to the rape exam the next day. The defense argued that prosecutors had failed to disclose that forensics expert Michael Baden expressed an opinion that the accuser may have suffered her injuries through sex with another man - and then prosecutors decided not to call him to testify. Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or at slipsher@denverpost.com . |