FREE KOBE

[Timber Loftis]

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Today's NY Times: Woe be it to bull-dogging golddiggas everywhere.

Prosecutors Drop Kobe Bryant Rape Case
By KIRK JOHNSON

he Kobe Bryant rape case was dismissed yesterday in Eagle, Colo., after prosecutors said the woman who had accused Mr. Bryant of sexual assault was unwilling to testify, leaving the state no option but to drop all charges.

The decision, which capped a yearlong drama of legal maneuvering and debate about the nation's rape laws - going to Colorado's highest court three times and to the United States Supreme Court once - came after meetings with the woman, her family and her lawyers, the district attorney in the case, Mark Hurlbert, said. Mr. Hurlbert said in a statement that he wanted to pursue the case and that his decision should not be seen as any reflection on Mr. Bryant's accuser or his office's belief in her account.

"The victim has informed us, after much of her own labored deliberation, that she does not want to proceed with this trial," Mr. Hurlbert said. "For this reason, and this reason only, the case is being dismissed."

The dissolution of the criminal trial, which veered from melodrama to farce and back during preliminary hearings, was not entirely unexpected. Legal scholars who have closely followed it say the prosecutor's case had been steadily weakening in the last month after rulings by Judge W. Terry Ruckriegle, the accidental release of sealed information about Mr. Bryant's accuser and, not least, the woman's own decision in early August to sue Mr. Bryant in civil court.

The civil suit was a particularly devastating blow to the prosecution because it would have allowed Mr. Bryant's lawyers to portray the woman, whose name has not been officially released, as driven by greed, not a quest for justice.

But Mr. Bryant also seemed to be staking out a new position yesterday in talking about what happened in a hotel room near Vail on the night of June 30, 2003, when the woman, then a 19-year-old front-desk clerk at the hotel, went to his room. The woman said they kissed and flirted and that he then became violent; he said the flirting led to consensual sex.

Even as he was cleared of the criminal charge, Mr. Bryant apologized yesterday for his behavior.

"Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did," he said in a statement read in court by his lawyer Pamela Mackey. "After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter. I issue this statement today fully aware that while one part of this case ends today, another remains. I understand that the civil case against me will go forward.''

As Mr. Hurlbert suggested in his comments, many questions raised by the case live on in the civil suit.

And now the collapse of the criminal case raises major questions of its own, in particular whether prosecutors were rash in filing charges in the first place, or whether the evidence looked weaker than it had at first.

Even Mr. Hurlbert's tone in dropping the case against Mr. Bryant was criticized by some legal experts who said it showed a lack of grace.

"I don't think it was appropriate for him to keep saying the word victim over and over again in his statement today," said Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder who has followed this case closely and who once taught Mr. Hurlbert. "He's quasi-announcing that Kobe Bryant is a rapist and that's the way it is," Mr. Campos said.

In any event, the case leaves a shambles of disordered lives and squandered resources. Mr. Bryant, an all-star player for the Los Angeles Lakers who had enjoyed a mostly positive reputation in a game where bad-boy behavior is not unknown, had faced up to four years to life in prison, or up to life on probation, if convicted of felony sexual assault. The prosecution and defense both spent huge sums in testing and investigation. Court facilities and personnel in Eagle County were often overwhelmed by the storm of media attention. Nearly 1,000 residents received summonses to appear as prospective jurors, and hundreds arrived last week for questioning.

And now the criminal case will apparently go away as if none of those machinations in the courtroom ever happened. Dropping the charges with prejudice means that there can be no question of bringing the case back if new evidence emerges.

One legal expert who has been closely watching the case said she thought that yesterday's development might also be a sign that the civil suit is nearing an end.

"It could simply mean she doesn't feel like she is psychologically or physically able to go forward," said Karen Steinhauser, a visiting law professor at the University of Denver College of Law and a former prosecutor. "Or it could imply there is a settlement agreement in the works and part of that settlement agreement could be that she won't testify in the criminal case."

The charges have clearly cost Mr. Bryant. Once one of the top pitchmen in professional sports, he lost endorsement deals with McDonald's and Nutella in the months that followed his arrest. Although he agreed last year to a multiyear, multimillion-dollar contract with Nike, the company has yet to broadcast a commercial featuring him, or release a shoe bearing his signature.

Among many sports fans, however, his popularity never waned. He was cheered enthusiastically at home games, and his No.8 jersey remained a top seller. Although sometimes jeered on the road, notably during the Lakers' two games in Denver, he enjoyed support in arenas from coast to coast.

The degree to which he seemed to keep his cool as an athlete despite the case was noted by fans and legal experts alike. On five separate occasions through the year of pretrial hearings, he made the court-to-court transition - day in court, night on court - and the Lakers won all five games, including three in the playoffs. But he finished the season with his lowest scoring average in four years and his worst shooting percentage since the 1997-98 season, his second as a professional.

Last night the Lakers' general manager, Mitch Kupchak, issued a statement on behalf of the team. "Naturally we are pleased that the charges against Kobe have been dropped,'' it said. "This has been a very difficult situation over the past 14 months for everyone involved. Kobe has handled himself with dignity and professionalism throughout this very trying ordeal.''

From the beginning and through the long months of pretrial hearings, what marked the Bryant case was how often the small and intimate issues in a rape accusation collided with larger questions of society and gender, power and politics.

Privacy got entangled with celebrity. Procedures of law and evidence became bound up with questions of money and fairness as local prosecutors more than once acknowledged their struggle to keep up with the barrage of legal motions and challenges that the defense team, with its deep bench of investigators and experts, was able to produce.

Tightly orchestrated judicial restrictions to protect secret court hearings were repeatedly trumped by happenstance and error, as clerks accidentally released, on three occasions, sealed documents that in turn became part of the legal scramble inside the courtroom.

The central question usually was information - how much of it would be shared with the jury. This included information about the woman's sexual history, about statements Mr. Bryant made to the police before his arrest, about clothing found in his hotel room that had her blood on it.

Many of those same social issues and legal quandaries will most likely still be in play in federal court in Denver, where Mr. Bryant's accuser filed her civil suit against Mr. Bryant on Aug. 10, legal experts said.

But the terrain there will be very different. Colorado's rape-victim protection laws, for example, which restrict how much information about a woman's sexual past can be released, do not apply in civil trials. And for both sides, the rules about what is considered legally relevant information are much looser.

A result, some experts said, is that a civil trial could make the criminal phase, for all its rough and tumble, look tame by comparison.

The woman's lawyers said in her lawsuit that the case against Mr. Bryant would rest in part on what the suit said was a pattern of attempting to sexually assault women. The charge was made in the initial court filing without any evidence to back it up, and Mr. Bryant's lawyers have been unable to respond to it because of a gag order imposed by the court.

But in a civil case, her lawyers would be able to pursue that question zealously, issuing subpoenas to any and all women who might be turned up by her investigators. Mr. Bryant's lawyers would be unleashed as well, looking for ways and witnesses to tarnish her credibility.


Howard Beck and Mindy Sink contributed reporting for this article

[Ronn_Bman]

She'll still get some cash out of him in a settlement which will be settled for no other reason than to make it go away. [img]graemlins/lovestory.gif[/img]

[Djinn Raffo]

Kobe Bryant is an admitted adulterer! He should burn in the fires of Mt. St. Helens!

[Felix The Assassin]

Yet another fine example of Money Walks, and Ahem Talks!

[ 09-02-2004, 08:38 PM: Message edited by: Felix The Assassin ]

[john]

He should have paid her 50 bucks first and all this would have been avoided!!

[Xen]

I don`t know if he`s guilty or not. Maybe she just wanted to get some big bucks or he really did it. Whatever the case is I am glad the he`s free now.