Bryant lawyer: $20,000 given to alleged victim

By Peggy Lowe, Rocky Mountain News
July 30, 2004

EAGLE - Kobe Bryant's alleged victim has received $20,000 in crime victim funds since accusing the NBA star of rape, showing the woman's "pecuniary interest" in making a "false allegation," one of Bryant's attorneys claims.

In an edited, partial transcript released Thursday, Denver lawyer Pamela Mackey complained to the trial judge during a June 21 hearing that the 20-year-old woman had received $17,000 in mental health reimbursement and $2,300 for lost wages. Mackey argued that the Eagle County jury hearing the trial, which is set to begin Aug. 27, should know that.

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"Miss ______ has profited to an enormous amount. Twenty thousand dollars, I would suspect to most people in this county, is a lot of money . . . and she has done that on the basis of a false allegation and has persisted in that false allegation," Mackey said.

Mackey, once calling the Eagle woman "the accuser," referred to crime victims compensation records, saying the woman received a "dramatically higher" amount than other victims have received from the fund.

Mackey also complained that employees of the Eagle County District Attorney's Office had "significant participation" in getting the woman the money.

Under state law, Mackey told Eagle County Judge Terry Ruckriegle, the woman would not be eligible for the money "if she made a material misrepresentation, which we believe she has."

Furthermore, the alleged victim signed a form that says she would be responsible for reimbursement "if falsehoods were discovered," Mackey said, giving her a "motivation to persist in the false allegation."

District attorney spokeswoman Krista Flannigan wouldn't comment on Mackey's remarks, saying "any comments we have will be filed in court."

"We're still moving forward" with the case, Flannigan added.

An attorney for the alleged victim, John Clune, blasted the defense accusations. "Ms. Mackey's suggestion that this girl or her family has profited from this case is obscene," he said.

Bryant's attorneys revealed in a document filed with the court in April that the woman spent some time at The Meadows, an Arizona addiction-treatment center that costs $35,000 a month.

The release of the transcript follows weeks of legal wrangling about whether the media should be allowed to publish it.

A court clerk mistakenly sent the transcripts from a June 21-22 hearing to seven news organizations on June 23, but Ruckriegle quickly put a contempt-of-court order in place, barring any media from publishing or broadcasting the information.

Media attorneys quickly filed suit, saying "prior restraint" - a government order not to publish - is a violation of the First Amendment.

The issue already has been visited by both the Colorado Supreme Court and U.S Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who denied the media's request to publish, but told Ruckriegle on Monday to release all or part of the transcripts within the next two days.

Ruckriegle hadn't done so by Thursday morning and media attorneys filed a second application to Breyer, citing Ruckriegle's "lethargy" and asking the justice to "act without further delay."

Thursday afternoon, Ruckriegle ordered release of the portion of the hearing about the crime victims fund, saying he already has resolved that issue, although he didn't say how he ruled.

Ruckriegle will decide about releasing the other portions of the June 21-22 proceeding after hearing arguments from Bryant's attorneys and prosecutors today.

The June hearings focused on the state's rape shield law, not the victim, attorneys argue, and "the government's effort to impose censorship in this case has attracted far more attention to these matters than any news reports about the transcripts that might have been published a month ago and long since forgotten," wrote attorney Lee Levine, of Washington, D.C.

Taking a jab at Ruckriegle for the erroneous Web posting this week of a sealed court document - with the alleged victim's last name and details of "penile swabs" taken on Bryant - Levine wrote that a mistake like that illustrates why prior restraint is never the answer for "governmental miscues."

First Amendment experts across the country have been watching the issue and are surprised at how long the prior restraint order has been in effect.

Now that Ruckriegle has indicated he will release redacted, or edited, versions of the transcripts, the question will be just what is missing, said Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law professor at Duke University.

If anything substantial is redacted, the media should take the issue back to the U.S. Supreme Court, he said.

What the transcripts say

Excerpts from transcripts of a June 21 hearing in the Kobe Bryant rape case, with Bryant attorney Pamela Mackey speaking to Judge Terry Ruckriegle:

• "Judge, what our investigation of the documents in total revealed was that this amount was dramatically higher than other amounts awarded by the CVC (crime victims' compensation) board."

• "Judge, we believe that these records are relevant on these bases. The first and most important is to show a pecuniary interest of Miss _____ in initially making the false allegation, and persisting in it some 10 months later. Miss _____ has profited to an enormous amount. Twenty thousand dollars, I would suspect to most people in this county, is a lot of money . . . and she has done that on the basis of a false allegation and has persisted in that false allegation."

Copyright 2004, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.