The Denver Post
Bryant to detectives: "There was nothing weird"
Thursday, September 16, 2004 -
Basketball star Kobe Bryant told Eagle County detectives that he was worried about his image and his wife's fury when they first contacted him about sex-assault allegations last year, according to a recording of the interview published today.
Bryant initially denied to investigators that he had sex with a 19-year-old worker at an mountain resort, and later said the encounter was consensual and similar to sex he frequently enjoyed with another woman, according to a transcript of the tape sent anonymously to the Vail Daily newspaper. It marks the first public release of the conversation that defense attorneys unsuccessfully fought to keep out of trial and now are seeking to have sealed permanently. "This is my career," Bryant told Eagle County Sheriff's detectives Doug Winters and Daniel Loya in a late-night interview at the upscale Lodge & Spa at Cordillera near Edwards a day after the encounter with the front-desk clerk. "My biggest fear is my career and ... my image." The sex-assault charge against Bryant was dismissed during jury selection earlier this month after the accuser told prosecutors that she would not go forward with the case. She still has a civil lawsuit pending against the Los Angeles Lakers star in Denver federal court. The interview, however, was one of the key pieces of evidence that prosecutors had planned to present at his criminal trial. "We had many pieces of strong evidence, and that was one of them," said Krista Flannigan, spokeswoman for District Attorney Mark Hurlbert. She declined to comment further, citing a temporary restraining order placed by an Eagle district-court judge at the request of defense attorneys. The transcript and an audio CD of the surreptitiously recorded conversation arrived at the Vail newspaper in a brown envelope with no return address and a Denver postmark.
Click here to read the transcript of Kobe Bryant's interview with detectives in the Vail Daily.
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 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.
Although the attorneys and law-enforcement officers are precluded from disclosing evidence covered by Judge Richard Hart's restraining order, other witnesses may have had access to the material and could have released it legally. Sources familiar with the material said the transcripts appear to be accurate. Bryant repeatedly asked the detectives to keep the investigation out of the press and not to let his wife, Vanessa, know about the incident. "If my wife, if my wife found out that anybody made any type of allegations against me, she would be infuriated," he said at one point, later suggesting that he would lose his wife and all of his endorsements if the incident became public. At another point, he added: "Whatever I need to do without making this thing public, I will do, man. I don't care what it is, man. I will do it." On the day Hurlbert announced the filing of the single felony charge against Bryant, the basketball star appeared alongside his wife at a press conference at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and announced that he had committed adultery but contended that the encounter was consensual. But in the interview with detectives late on July 1, 2003, Bryant initially told a different story. Winters: "Ok, all right. Um, did anything happen in the room?" Bryant: "Like what?" Loya: "Uh, did you guys hug or kiss?" Bryant: "No." Winters: "OK. Um, I'll be blunt and ask you. Did you have sexual intercourse with her?" Bryant: "No." After detectives indicated they had allegations otherwise, Bryant recanted and admitted that he did have sex with her, but it was consensual and that the woman even initiated it. "We were still only this close, and she gets up and she gives me a kiss," he said. "So I kiss her back, and then, you know, I started caressing her or whatever. And then she puts her hand on my, you know, my thing or whatever, and it kind of goes from there." Bryant, who detectives indicated was upset at times, told them that the five minutes of intercourse began when woman bent herself over the chair. "It was consensual," he said. "There was nothing weird, you know what I mean?" He said he had sex that way frequently with another woman who was not his wife but asserted that he had never been accused of sex assault before. "I'm telling you man, I swear on my life, I did not, I did not sexually assault her in no kind of way whatsoever, man," Bryant said. He acknowledged putting his hand on the woman's neck and asked her if he could ejaculate in her face, which, he said, was the first time she said "no" and led to a quick end to the encounter. When Loya prodded, Bryant responded: "That's my thing. Not always, I mean, so I stopped. Jesus Christ, man." Bryant, who wasn't even sure of the woman's name and interjected that "she wasn't all that attractive," said the encounter ended on friendly terms, with a goodbye kiss at the door of his room. "I can't believe this girl," he said. "What does she want from me?" Winters: "I don't think she wants anything." Bryant: "Are you kidding me?" Loya: "What are you willing to give her?" Bryant: "She has to want, she has to want something. (Inaudible.) She has to want something." Staff Writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or at slipsher@denverpost.com . |