Barry Gutierrez © News An artist sketches Kobe Bryant and his attorneys during a recess at Friday's hearing at the Eagle County Courthouse regarding the basketball star's sexual assault case. Much of the hearing dealt with privacy issues concerning Bryant and the alleged victim.

Defense team brings up subject during wrangling over privacy issues

By Charlie Brennan And Jeff Kass, Rocky Mountain News
January 24, 2004

EAGLE - The issue of race was raised for the first time in the Kobe Bryant sexual-assault case Friday, courtesy of the basketball star's defense team.

"There is lots of history out there about men, black men, being falsely accused of this crime by white women," said attorney Pamela Mackey.

Bryant is black and his alleged 19-year-old victim, a 2002 graduate of Eagle Valley High School, is white.

Mackey's comment came during legal wrangling with attorney Inga Causey, who is representing the Eagle County Resource Center, a rape-crisis facility.

Bryant's attorneys want to review the brief notes of a rape counselor who interviewed the alleged victim on July 1, a day after her encounter with Bryant at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera in Edwards.

Causey said the notes should be considered confidential, much as those between a therapist and patient.

She said the alleged victim has been subjected to unrelenting scrutiny in the high-profile case.

"Her name is the most-searched item on the Internet," her personal data is "being passed around like a dirty postcard," Causey said. "This case could possibly have a chilling effect on rape cases reported not only in Eagle County, but nationwide."

That's when Mackey answered Causey's commentary with her statement about white women falsely accusing black men of rape.

"They flipped over the race card," said former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman. "But everybody always knew it was in their hand."

Bryant, who was whisked into court through a secure private entrance, spent the day in District Judge Terry Ruckriegle's courtroom, watching attorneys fight over issues of privacy.

Most pivotal is whether the young woman has waived her right to keep her counseling and medical records private.

She is alleged to have attempted suicide twice in the five months before the June 30 encounter with Bryant.

Bryant's attorneys believe both incidents were attempts to capture the attention of an ex-boyfriend, and that her allegation against Bryant is part of a pattern of behavior. They charge that she has discussed those matters so openly that she has implicitly waived her right to privacy.

While Ruckriegle did not publicly rule on the medical records, he did order the attorneys to destroy copies of a two-page medical record from Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs that detailed one of the alleged suicide attempts.

The records were turned over to the Eagle District Attorney's Office and Bryant's attorneys by mistake.

Ruckriegle didn't rule against admitting the records during a trial, but he said that until he decides, he wanted them destroyed. Prosecutors said they already had done so, and Hal Haddon, a member of the defense team, promised they would do so as well.

The flip side of Friday's privacy debates centered on Bryant.

Haddon argued that the 75-minute tape of Bryant's initial statement to investigators is inadmissible at trial. He said it contains "irrelevant, immaterial" remarks and "intensely private" information that could make it difficult to find open-minded jurors.

No rulings were announced Friday on the key privacy issues.

Ruckriegle conducted the hearing on the medical-privacy issue in private. Prior to that, however, seven family members of the alleged victim filled the front row.

Her mother was among nine people the defense had subpoenaed, but it was not known who testified.

Lindsey McKinney, of Eagle, who once lived with the alleged victim, spent several hours outside the courtroom Friday with her mother, Julie Siminoe. McKinney had been subpoenaed, but was not called to testify.

Matt Herr, a former boyfriend of the alleged victim, also was subpoenaed.

Bryant and his attorneys left the court at 5:15 p.m., exiting by the public entrance shunned eight hours earlier.

Eagle District Attorney Mark Hurlbert and his team departed by another exit. Hurlbert said only that the hearing on the medical records had concluded.

Bryant, whose Los Angeles Lakers were idle Friday, has not played since spraining a shoulder in a game Jan. 12. He is due back in Eagle for another hearing Feb. 2 and 3.

A trial date has yet to be set but is likely still months away.

Copyright 2004, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.