By Charlie Brennan And Peggy Lowe, Rocky Mountain News
November 15, 2003

EAGLE - Potential jurors for a Kobe Bryant trial in Eagle County continue to be questioned by a private pollster.

"I can confirm that we are doing polls that include people who live in Eagle County," said Paul Talmey, president of Talmey-Drake Research & Strategy Inc., of Boulder.

But Talmey wouldn't confirm his research is being done for the Bryant case. Nor would he divulge his client.

"We are doing surveys, and some of those respondents live in Eagle County," Talmey said.

Talmey's firm has done polling in the past for defense lawyers contemplating moving a trial to obtain a jury panel less affected by pretrial publicity.

Talmey's firm worked for the defense in the 1993 Nathan Dunlap quadruple-murder case at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora, and in the 1995 kidnapping and murder case of Robert Harlan in Adams County - both death-penalty cases.

Avon defense attorney Jim Fahrenholtz said he has heard of several Eagle County residents in recent weeks being contacted by a pollster, including a client of his who received a call two weeks ago, forwarded to his location on vacation.

"He didn't want to answer them," Fahrenholtz said.

Fahrenholtz, who once served as chief trial deputy in the Eagle County District Attorney's Office, knows nothing of what Talmey is learning from his Eagle County polling.

But Fahrenholtz said what he is hearing suggests that Bryant's lawyers may want to keep the Los Angeles Lakers star's trial right where it is.

Bryant, 25, is accused of one count of felony sexual assault stemming from a June 30 incident at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera in nearby Edwards. Bryant contends the sex was consensual.

"I can just tell you what I've heard from members of the community, which is, basically, that they don't think there's any way that he gets convicted," Fahrenholtz said.

"Everybody seems to think that she's got a reputation such that, it doesn't appear they can trust what she has to say," Fahrenholtz said of Bryant's 19-year-old alleged victim.

It has previously been reported that the young woman was rushed to a Greeley hospital Feb. 25, during her freshman year at the University of Northern Colorado, after police judged she was a danger to herself.

She also suffered a pill overdose in May, about a month before the Bryant incident. Lindsey McKinney, who used to live with the alleged victim, said she believes the woman took prescription sleeping pills containing an anti-anxiety component, not in a suicide attempt, but in a plea to gain attention from an ex-boyfriend.

Fahrenholtz believes locals' opinions of Bryant are positive.

"Most people I talk to just say they don't see him as being a rapist," Fahrenholtz said. "Everybody says 'Yeah, he did something really stupid' to even put himself in this position to even get accused of it."

"But I think most people can sympathize with the idea that it doesn't seem uncommon for a celebrity sports figure to commit adultery," he added.

"They think he did something really stupid, but it wasn't a crime."

Should District Judge Terry Ruckriegle be asked to move Bryant's trial, and should he agree to do so, it's believed he would relocate it to Breckenridge, Leadville or Georgetown.

Copyright 2003, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.