The Denver Post
New details emerge from Bryant documents
Saturday, October 02, 2004 - Eagle - Kobe Bryant's accuser told investigators in her own words that she was "scared that he was gonna choke me 'til, like I couldn't breathe, or that he would hit me" during a sexual encounter with the basketball star that she termed a sexual assault.
The statements from the woman, then a 19-year-old hotel desk clerk, were part of a 350-page case file released by the Eagle County Sheriff's Department on Friday. They mark the first public disclosure of her exact words to investigators. In the transcript of the videotaped interview with detectives Doug Winters and Marsha Rich, the woman states that a mutual flirting and makeout session in Bryant's hotel room soon became a violent encounter in which the NBA all-star bent her over a chair and had sex with her. "When he started groping me, he wasn't so nice anymore," she said. "His voice got deeper and more stern and he became more rough with me." Prosecutors dropped the sexual-assault case during jury selection last month after the accuser revealed that she would no longer willingly participate in the trial. She still has a civil case seeking financial damages against Bryant. Among the investigation reports, affidavits, evidence and arrest records released Friday were a crude, hand-drawn map of the layout of room 35 at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera, handwritten notes and transcripts of interviews with key witnesses. The documents, which often were redundant and were heavily redacted in some places, also reveal early holes in the prosecution case, such as the statements of a night auditor who didn't notice anything wrong with the woman after she returned from Bryant's room. Bryant contended all along that the liaison was consensual, but, in a statement released after the charges were dismissed, he apologized to the woman and acknowledged that he understood how she felt that she did not consent. In the documents made available to the media Friday, the woman said she stayed late at work that night in June of 2003 after she learned that a reservation in the name of Javier Rodriguez actually was Bryant and his entourage. "I was excited to see Kobe Bryant," she told detectives.
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copy of the felony charges against Bryant in the PDF format. The charges were dropped Sept. 1.
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the questions that were asked asked of potential jurors in the case.
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Winters asked her: "Had you led him on at any time during this event, where he would have believed that maybe he was led on?" The woman: "Yes." Winters: "At what point?" The woman: "When I was walking to his room and showing him, showing him around. He was being flirtatious to me, and I was flirtatious back." Winters: "OK, and why were you doing that?" The woman: "Part of me was excited that he was Kobe Bryant and he was showing interest in me. And part of me was trying to, I don't wanna say being a good employee, but be nice, I guess." But she said Bryant then began groping her, pulling down his own pants and trying to lift her dress. She said she tried to leave the room, but he kept blocking her route to the door. Then, she said Bryant held her by the neck and forced her over chair, pulled up her dress and entered her from behind. "At that point, I was just kinda scared, and I said 'no' a few times," she said. The accuser "stated she got to the point where she was thinking that instead of trying to get him to stop, she was only thinking how would she get through this assault without him hurting her," Rich reported. Night auditor Trina McKay told investigators that when the accuser arrived back after the tour with Bryant, "she told (the accuser to) count out her cash for the day before she leaves. She stated she didn't observe anything different about (the accuser) before (she) left. She didn't observe (the accuser) crying or having recently cried," according to Rich's report. After learning of the allegations, McKay told investigators: "she didn't think (the accuser) was telling the truth. She stated she thought (the accuser) would be more upset. She stated (the accuser) was only gone for about 10-15 minutes." The woman told investigators that she had met McKay for the first time that night, however, and the auditor wouldn't have known how she would have reacted. Meanwhile, bellman Bobby Pietrack told authorities that as he and the accuser walked to the time clock, she "grabbed my arm and started to cry and said that Kobe Bryant choked her. I asked her again, and she said, 'he choked me.' After we clocked out, I asked her to tell me everything, and that is when she told me that Kobe Bryant had forced sex with her. She was very shaken and was crying." About 12:30 a.m., the woman called her former boyfriend, Matt Herr, telling him "you're not going to believe what had just happened," Rich reported. After his sex-assault examination in Glenwood Springs, Bryant told Loya: "Do the best investigation that you have ever done in your career, please." Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or at slipsher@denverpost.com . |