Missteps, everyday actions of woman become grist for mill

By Peggy Lowe, Rocky Mountain News
August 26, 2004

It was just a part-time job, working as hostess at a rib joint in a Florida resort town. It didn't last long.

Because as soon as one of the supermarket tabloids learned that Kobe Bryant's alleged victim was working there, she was hounded and had to leave.

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So after just three days, the 20-year-old woman told Sal Morgera, the manager of Lucille's Bad to the Bone BBQ in Delray Beach, that she had to quit.

"We figured out what was going on," said Morgera, who had recognized her name when she applied.

"She apologized," he said. "All she said was she had to go and she was sorry it was such short notice."

That's a common story from the year spent living as Kobe Bryant's "alleged victim," as the media say, or "the accuser," as Bryant's lawyers call her, or "Jane Doe" as some court documents refer to her.

But even as all those names were used to protect her anonymity, the woman's identity became an open secret just hours after she registered her claim of sexual assault with authorities. Her name, picture, home address and e-mail were on several Web sites.

The small-town girl who dreamed of being famous became infamous.

Before June 30, 2003, when she met Bryant while working as a concierge at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera in Edwards, the then-19-year-old was a perky party girl, by all accounts. She had been a cheerleader at Eagle Valley High School, sang in the choir, played piano and dreamed of being a singer.

She spent her freshman year at the University of Northern Colorado, but there were problems because of drinking and boys, other UNC students said, and she didn't return to Greeley in the fall.

During her freshman year, the woman tried out for American Idol, the TV talent show, during one of those huge casting calls in Austin, Texas. She didn't make the cut, but came back to school with tales of meeting a guy who looked like Justin Timberlake.

People who liked her and people who didn't all said the same thing: the young woman had an amazing need for attention.

"I still liked her, but she was always the center of attention," said Rich Frederick, a UNC student who lived down the hall from the woman in the freshman dorm. "'Look at me! Look at me!' That kind of stuff."

She sang a Celine Dion song in a talent show at the dorm, Frederick said, liked to sing karaoke and loved to go to parties. And she had lots of trouble with her on-again, off-again boyfriend from home.

"It was nothing but drama," Frederick said. "'We're fighting. We're done. We made up. We're done.'"

School, the boyfriend and other concerns must have taken a toll. The woman was taken to a Greeley hospital on the night of Feb. 25, 2003, after UNC police responded to her dorm and determined she was "a danger to herself," police said.

There was a report of another mental health problem a couple months later, while she was staying at her parents' Eagle home. The Orange County Register reported that she overdosed on pills and was taken to a hospital. Officials would not comment on the incident.

Then, with the filing of charges against the NBA star came hundreds of death threats, obscene messages, dozens of reporters knocking on her door, no quiet anywhere. The now-20-year-old woman has lived in four different states and three people have been arrested for allegedly threatening or plotting to kill her.

"The defense begins to question everyone she meets. The media reveals her location," her mother wrote in a March letter to the judge overseeing the case. "Her safety is at risk and she has to move again."

She's also wrestled with some personal demons. The woman spent some time at The Meadows, an Arizona addiction-treatment center that costs $35,000 a month, according to a document filed in April by Bryant's attorneys, and she's received public funds for therapy.

The woman has had to face her alleged attacker in court, testifying behind closed doors once with Bryant in the room, then attending another hearing on a different day.

No one is saying where the young woman is now. But her attorney has said the woman wants to go back to college and hoped the trial would be over by the start of the fall semester. Obviously, that hasn't happened.

Even though her time at the Florida rib joint was brief, Sal Morgera said she was a good worker, polite and nice, and the customers liked her. And maybe she had a few minutes of being just a part-time hostess in a new town and not the infamous alleged victim.

"Everybody here was really cool," Morgera said. "Nobody bothered her. People are here to make money and go to college."

lowep@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5482

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