By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
April 27, 2004

EAGLE - The sexual history of Kobe Bryant's alleged victim was center stage again Monday as eight more witnesses testified in a closed-door hearing held to determine its possible relevancy at trial.

Eagle County District Judge Terry Ruckriegle began taking such testimony outside the presence of the media or public in a hearing that has run intermittently since March 2 and is expected to conclude Wednesday.

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Colorado's rape shield law presumes the sexual history of an alleged victim or a witness to be inadmissible at a sexual assault trial, unless it can first be shown in a hearing, conducted in private, to be directly relevant to the facts of the case.

Bryant's lawyers claim his alleged victim, a 19-year-old Eagle woman, had multiple consensual partners - including the Los Angeles Lakers star - during a 72-hour period.

Vaginal injuries that prosecutors attribute to forced penetration by Bryant June 30 at an Edwards hotel could have been caused, his lawyers have argued, by multiple consensual partners.

The witnesses who appeared Monday included several young men and a woman, who were believed to be acquaintances of the alleged victim.

Witnesses are not identified when they enter the courtroom, and efforts were also made Monday to screen several from photographers. They included Johnray Strickland, a former boyfriend who discussed the alleged victim's mental health in a national television appearance, saying that she'd told him she might be bipolar.

A prosecution rape-shield witness not in attendance Monday was Jean McAllister, executive director of the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Court documents made public showed she was going to have to be heard at another time, because she could not be available.

McAllister is Gov. Bill Owens' hand-picked appointee to the independent commission investigating recruiting practices at the University of Colorado. That panel was in session Monday, hearing testimony from CU President Betsy Hoffman.

Presumably, when she does testify in Eagle, McAllister will speak to issues of post-traumatic stress that rape victims often suffer.

While Monday's proceedings were conducted in secrecy, several filings that were made public showed the two sides continue to spar over what evidence the prosecution has or has not made available to the defense, as discovery rules require.

For example, the defense is seeking as much information as possible about any payments that might have been made from state victim compensation funds toward addiction treatment they claim the alleged victim received at The Meadows rehabilitation facility in Wickenburg, Ariz.

Prosecutors have provided the victim compensation fund file on the young woman to Ruckriegle for the judge to determine what can be released to the defense without violating her state and federal rights to privacy.

David Lugert, a former federal prosecutor at both the federal level and in Eagle County, dismissed that debate as a sideshow.

"I think it's much ado about nothing," said Lugert, "a tempest in a teapot. To suggest that she's more likely to testify, or would color her testimony (in return for any benefit she received from that fund) seems totally unlikely, and to fly in the face of reason."

A former Denver prosecutor said the issue could take some time to resolve.

"Discovery issues often lead to appellate reversals, so the prosecution is walking through a minefield," said Craig Silverman. "I don't think the prosecution is doing anything wrong by putting it in the hands of the judge."

It's also one of many undecided issues, Silverman said, that could put Bryant's trial - a tentative date could be set this week - far in the future.

"Judge Ruckriegle is never going to be hurried into a wrong decision," said Silverman. "He is going to take his time to get it right, despite what anyone else says."

A costly defense

$10 million: The estimated cost for private investigators, security firms, independent crime laboratories, a private jet agency and defense experts to aid in Kobe Bryant's legal battle, legal analysts told The Orange County Register on Monday. Bryant, 25, earns an estimated $35 million a year. "How much would you spend to defend your life?" said Guss Guarino, executive director of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar. "Every penny."

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