George Kochaniec Jr. © News Kobe Bryant leaves the Eagle County Justice Center on Monday after a daylong pretrial hearing. Lawyers said Bryant, his alleged victim and witnesses have all gotten death threats.

By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
July 20, 2004

EAGLE - Kobe Bryant's rape trial will become a sensationalized reality show if television cameras are allowed in the courtroom, a prosecutor warned Monday.

"It will have sex, violence, lies and national celebrity," said Eagle County District Attorney Mark Hurlbert. "It has all the makings of a reality show. All that's missing is the camera."

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Hurlbert even offered a name for the show he hopes will never appear, Survivor: Eagle County.

He was not alone in voicing vigorous opposition to cameras filming the trial of the Los Angeles Lakers player, scheduled to start with jury selection Aug. 27. A Bryant defense team member and a lawyer representing the alleged victim in the case also argued against a Court TV request to televise the proceedings, expected to last three to four weeks.

Monday's hearing came one year and a day from the date Bryant was charged in the case that carries a maximum sentence of four years to life in prison.

Court TV, represented in court by Denver attorney Richard Holme and by Fred Graham, the network's chief anchor and managing editor, proposes the use of two cameras - one a small device referred to as a "lipstick camera" - carrying proceedings on a one-hour delay basis, as a safeguard against inadvertently broadcasting sensitive material such as the alleged victim's face or name.

Defense lawyer Hal Haddon cautioned that much of the testimony will be "titillating and salacious," particularly given the tremendous celebrity of the 25-year-old six-time NBA All-Star, who on Thursday signed a new pact with the Lakers for $136.4 million over the next seven years.

Haddon said the case, which stems from the charge that Bryant assaulted a then-19-year-old concierge on June 30, 2003 at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera, where he was a guest and she was employed, presents "unique facts" and "unique privacy issues."

He cautioned that testimony will address "the most private of human conduct in the most explicit ways."

Haddon also expressed the fear that television cameras could influence jurors' ultimate decision.

"We have a very legitimate concern if this trial is televised," he said. "There is going to be significant pressure on these jurors to render a verdict which is popular."

Also taking a stand against the presence of television cameras was John Clune, an Avon attorney who represents the alleged victim and her parents, who watched Monday's arguments from a front row behind the prosecution table.

Clune said that the possible presence of a television camera at the back of the courtroom, even if it is aimed away from the witness stand during her testimony as promised by Holme and Graham, "has the potential to affect her ability to testify the way that both the prosecution and the defense need her to."

Chief District Judge Terry Ruckriegle did not rule Monday. Court TV has asked for a decision to be rendered by Aug. 1, in order to have technical issues settled.

Clune also pleaded for another level of protection for his client, who lived in Eagle at the time of her encounter with Bryant, but has reportedly moved at least four times to escape death threats and continuing invasions of her privacy.

Because a Web site run by the Colorado Judicial Branch once posted a case document in which her name had not been blacked out, and due to the inadvertent dissemination of a 206-page transcript of a closed hearing concerning her sexual history, Clune wants all electronic distribution of case information to be terminated.

Those incidents, Clune said, are the only occasions on which the young woman has ever considered withdrawing her complaint against Bryant.

"She feels like she cannot trust the people who are supposed to protect her rights," Clune said. And her family, he said, feels as if "there is no safety, in anything the court does."

Later Monday, Clune said, "She is more than willing to proceed to trial." Any hesitation the young woman had, he said, "was definitely in the past tense."

Numerous parties in the Bryant drama continue to express concerns that their roles put them in jeopardy.

Clune revealed Monday that two prosecution witnesses have received death threats, at least one of those having been referred to the FBI. Haddon said that Bryant, too, continues to be targeted by threats, which he did not detail.

Ruckriegle made no ruling Monday about the future of the Web site, which has served as a model for a similar service being offered by the state of California in the Michael Jackson child molestation case.

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