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Jury Selection in Bryant Case to Resume

By JON SARCHE
.c The Associated Press

EAGLE, Colo. (AP) - Attorneys in Kobe Bryant's sexual assault case are questioning prospective jurors on their attitudes about race, experiences with sexual assault and any effect intense pretrial publicity has had on them - but it's all happening behind closed doors.

Individual questioning began Monday after District Judge Terry Ruckriegle rejected a media request for access. The judge said he wanted candidates to feel they could answer questions about potentially embarrassing topics without scrutiny by the press.

An unspecified number of potential jurors filed singly into a small hearing room in the courthouse for a first round of questioning that took nearly 10 hours. The second round was to begin Tuesday morning.

Ruckriegle also said Bryant's right to a fair trial and the potential jurors' right to privacy outweigh ``qualified'' First Amendment rights of access.

Bryant has pleaded not guilty to felony sexual assault, saying he had consensual sex with a then-19-year-old employee at a Vail-area resort where he stayed last summer. If convicted, the Los Angeles Lakers' star faces four years to life in prison or 20 years to life on probation, and a fine up to $750,000.

Before the questioning began, potential jurors filled out an 82-item questionnaire asking them their feelings about interracial relationships, whether they have had ``any negative experience with an African American'' and whether they are biased against mental health professionals, among other things.

Trial consultant Howard Varinsky of Varinsky Associates said he believes the defense is particularly concerned about people's feelings on whether a defendant must prove he is innocent or whether he should be required to testify.

Prosecutors, he said, will be wary of people who have had negative experiences with law enforcement or the court system.

``Both sides are looking for who to kick,'' he said.

In fact, the questionnaire probably does not provide an accurate glimpse of arguments that will come up at trial, said Richard Gabriel, a Los Angeles-based trial consultant with Decision Analysis.

``It probably has more to do with what one side anticipates the other side's themes and issues are going to be and wanting to clearly find out if people are going to be amenable to it,'' he said.

Also Monday, Denver television station KCNC released some details of the sealed, 150-person witness list. The station reported it included the accuser and her parents, along with some of her acquaintances from Eagle and from the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley where she was a student until fall 2003.

Also on the list, the station said, were people from Calgary, Alberta, where the supermarket tabloid Globe published what it said were pictures of the accuser celebrating in a bar a few months after the alleged attack.

Attorney John Clune, who represents the accuser, criticized the leak, one of several in the case so far.

``On the eve of trial, we are once again reminded that no protections are assured and little efforts are made to correct the evident flaws that have defined this case,'' Clune said.

Ruckriegle said private questioning will be limited to topics including potential jurors' personal experience with sexual assault, any potential racial prejudice they harbor, whether pretrial publicity has prompted them to form an opinion on Bryant's guilt or innocence, and any familiarity they may have with the alleged victim.

In all, the jury pool includes 276 Eagle County residents - 205 of whom filled out questionnaires Friday and were called back for more questioning this week after attorneys reviewed the answers over the weekend and eliminated about one-third of the original pool of 300. Seventy-one more potential jurors filled out questionnaires Monday.

Jury selection will be private until at least Wednesday, when reporters will be able to watch and listen through closed-circuit television. By then, the jury pool will likely have been whittled considerably. Opening statements are expected Sept. 7.


 
08/31/04 04:41 EDT

The Science of the Brief Encounter
Kobe Bryant's sexual-assault trial is sure to have its He-Said-She-Said moments. But the story told by blood stains, body fluids and other physical evidence may decide his fate

By Jeff Benedict

Jury selection has begun in Kobe Bryant's trial in Eagle, Colo.
 
After months of sparring, media spinning and nearly unanimous predictions that the trial would never happen, jury selection began last Friday in the Kobe Bryant sexual-assault case in Eagle, Colo. SI has seen previously undisclosed documents, which, in conjunction with court transcripts and interviews, are the basis for this report of how the trial may unfold.

Like most acquaintance rape cases, this one involves a man and a woman who entered a room, only to emerge with diametrically opposed versions of what happened there. The accuser's testimony will be the centerpiece of the state's case. But the physical evidence -- genital injuries, blood and DNA -- as well as Bryant's lengthy police statement will be crucial to both sides. Collection of this evidence began on July 1, 2003, about 12 hours after the incident, when Detective Doug Winters from the Eagle County Sheriff's Office and Deputy Marsha Rich went to the home of a 19-year-old college freshman to investigate her report of a sexual assault. Questioning the woman in the presence of her parents, Winters and Rich learned the man she was accusing was Kobe Bryant. The officers asked for the clothing she had worn the night before. Winters noticed what appeared to be a blood stain on a pair of purple panties. The officers took the woman and her clothing to the sheriff's office, where she gave a detailed videotaped statement.

Next her parents drove her to Valley View Hospital, where two nurses trained in sexual-assault cases conducted a rape-kit exam. SI has learned the exam revealed "multiple lacerations" and "bruises" between the vagina and anal opening. The nurses, noting the subject had not showered or douched since the encounter, described the injuries as genital "trauma" inconsistent with consensual sex.

Investigators then went to question Bryant, arriving at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera, where the woman worked, roughly 24 hours after the alleged assault. Without receiving a Miranda warning or consulting a lawyer, Bryant spoke for 75 minutes to Winters and his partner, Dan Loya, who, unbeknownst to Bryant, had activated a concealed tape recorder. Most of the conversation has been admitted into evidence by trial judge Terry Ruckriegle. According to a report made available to SI, Bryant acknowledged talking with the woman. He told police they "shot the s---" but denied having sex with her. After the detectives said they had evidence to the contrary, Bryant admitted that he did have sex with the woman but denied any use of force. When asked how he knew the woman wanted to have sex, Bryant said he could tell from the look she gave him. Then he discussed with investigators something his accuser had not: oral sex. (The accuser told nurses at the hospital, who later told investigators, that Bryant made her kiss his penis and that she washed her face before leaving the room.)

In his interview with the detectives, Bryant remained cooperative and polite but expressed fears that his wife would find out about the incident and that it could ruin his career. When asked if he would pay his accuser to make the allegation go away, Bryant said that he would. After the interview, when the detectives executed a search warrant, Bryant took off his T-shirt, saying it was the same one he'd worn the previous night. It contained three smears of blood around the waist area. The officers then took Bryant to Valley View Hospital, where he provided body fluid samples and had his penis and other body parts swabbed. He was arrested two days later.

Whether Bryant testifies will probably not be determined until the prosecution rests. But despite his lawyers' efforts to have his statement and bloody shirt excluded, Ruckriegle deemed them admissible. Prosecutors will attempt to link the shirt to the injuries detected during the rape-kit exam. Those injuries are similar to the ones used as evidence by Greg Garrison when he successfully prosecuted Mike Tyson in Indianapolis in 1992 for raping a college freshman who willingly went to his hotel room and later said she was assaulted. Like Garrison, Colorado prosecutors will present graphic exhibits and medical testimony that the injuries are not consistent with consensual sex. Bryant's lawyers may try to minimize the injuries, but they are more likely to try to raise doubts about who caused them and use complicated DNA evidence to suggest it was someone other than Bryant. (The validity and admissibility of that evidence was challenged by prosecutors last week, but Ruckriegle had not ruled on the issue when SI went to press.)

When Bryant's accuser underwent her medical exam, swabs were taken from her vagina and thighs. Also, fabric samples were taken from the yellow underpants she wore to the exam and the purple pair worn during her encounter with Bryant. Initially, this evidence was analyzed by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation at the crime lab in Denver, which found that the pair worn to the exam contained a semen stain belonging to a man other than Bryant.

The defense subsequently ran its own forensic tests on the underwear and the swabs collected from the accuser. The analysis was performed by a private lab in Ventura, Calif., operated by Marc Taylor, a former L.A. Medical Examiner's Office criminalist who worked as an expert witness for the O.J. Simpson defense team. Taylor's lab reported that it found sperm from a man other than Bryant -- identified as Mr. X -- in both pairs of the accuser's underwear and on the swabs taken from her body.

At a closed-door hearing on June 21 and 22, DNA expert Elizabeth Johnson testified for the defense that the accuser's sexual contact with Mr. X "likely occurred after [the accuser] and Mr. Bryant were together." Johnson testified that no traces of Mr. X's DNA were detected on the swabs taken from Bryant or the T-shirt he wore. Johnson said that had Mr. X's sperm been on the accuser at the time of her encounter with Bryant, it should have shown up on Bryant.

Based on the publicly released DNA evidence in the case, Ronald Singer, president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and Alan Keel, a criminalist and DNA expert, both told SI that Johnson's argument that Mr. X's fluids were deposited on the woman after her encounter with Bryant raises serious questions.

The accuser told investigators that she had sex about three days before meeting Bryant but no sex between that encounter and her exam. It has been reported that the DNA on the purple panties establishes that the accuser had sexual contact soon after her encounter with Bryant, but prosecutors have filed a document that says cotton cloth can retain semen even after it has been repeatedly "soaked or washed."

This does not explain sperm and semen on the swabs from the woman's body, but SI has learned that besides being a small sample, the DNA from Mr. X consisted of only the portions of sperm that remain after it has degraded over time. "Generally, when degraded sperm is all you see, it means several days have gone by," said Singer.

The responsibility for explaining this and rebutting Johnson's conclusions will likely fall to Dr. Henry Lee, the criminalist who, along with Marc Taylor, worked for the Simpson defense. But in the Bryant case Lee will testify for the prosecution, while Taylor is working for the defense.

What is Lee likely to say? He may make the point, as both DNA experts interviewed by SI did, that the small amount of sperm from Mr. X is inconsistent with a sexual encounter after one with Bryant. Keel and Singer also agree that semen swabbed from her leg could have been deposited there before she met Bryant -- "but that presumes she didn't shower during that time," said Keel. Lee is also likely to attack the integrity of the defense's DNA analysis.

Although DNA has dominated the pretrial coverage, "this case could hinge on the blood," Singer says, referring to the fact that the stains on Bryant's T-shirt (and on the purple panties) were the accuser's blood. "Her blood on his T-shirt indicates her injuries were caused or reopened by him." There are two likely causes for vaginal bleeding: menstruation and trauma. Records obtained by SI indicate the accuser's period concluded nine days before her encounter with Bryant. "In cases of acquaintance rape, the presence of blood evidence is a touchdown for prosecutors," says Garrison, who did not have such evidence when he prosecuted Tyson.

Bryant's defense lawyers have attempted to admit evidence of the accuser's sexual history, but the judge has limited that to the 72 hours preceding her rape-kit exam. Garrison points out that all the pretrial publicity about the accuser's sex life may hurt her reputation but could help the state's case. "If she is sexually active," explained Garrison, "she is not going to hurt and bleed if she had consensual sex with Kobe. You only bleed if you don't want it to happen."

DENVER - Attorneys for Kobe Bryant have won the first round in their bid to permanently seal documents and evidence from the sexual assault case against the NBA star.

In a ruling late Wednesday, District Judge Richard Hart approved an emergency request from defense attorney Pamela Mackey, who said Bryant would “suffer real, immediate and irreparable injury” if the records were released.

At least six requests had been filed seeking access to the records after prosecutors last week dismissed the case at the request of the 20-year-old alleged victim, Mackey said. Among those requests was one from The Associated Press.

The evidence includes recordings and transcripts of Bryant’s interview with sheriff’s investigators the night after the alleged attack at a Vail-area resort last summer and several hundred sealed court filings.

“No member of the public or media should be permitted to manipulate and abuse for salacious and other improper purposes the evidence, audio recordings and other materials in this case,” Mackey said. “This case is over. Mr. Bryant is innocent. He should be permitted to move on with his life.”

The Los Angeles Lakers star still faces a civil lawsuit seeking unspecified damages filed by the accusers attorneys in Denver federal court.

In granting a temporary restraining order, Hart prohibited various agencies and attorneys from disclosing any documents or other items related to the criminal case. He said the temporary order would remain in effect until Sept. 18 or he rules on Mackey’s request.

Kobe Bryant, Accuser Agree to Settle Civil Lawsuit

ABC News Learns that NBA Star and Woman Who Accused Him of Rape Have Reached Agreement on Emotional and Other Injuries

March 1, 2005 — Kobe Bryant and the woman who accused him of sexual assault have agreed in principle to settle the civil lawsuit she filed against the NBA star, ABC News has learned.

Sources told ABC news that Bryant and his accuser have agreed to a settlement for emotional and other injuries she said she sustained in connection with the alleged rape. Sources say the parties are meeting this week to work out the details of the settlement, which could be signed by both parties by the end of the week.

Bryant's attorneys and lawyers representing the woman began making progress on the settlement last Friday. The Los Angeles Lakers' guard had been scheduled to give a deposition in the case, but it was postponed.

The accuser was employed at a Vail, Colo., resort where Bryant stayed in June 2003. Bryant admitted having sex with the woman, but he insisted it was consensual.

Eagle County prosecutors dropped the sexual assault charge against Bryant last September, just as jury selection was beginning for a criminal trial.

Prosecutors said they dropped the criminal case because the alleged victim decided she would not testify. She said she could not continue with the criminal case after the court mistakenly posted her name and sealed documents containing personal information — including defense allegations about her sex life and medical history — on its Web site. It was the third time the court had accidentally published sealed documents.

After the criminal charges were dropped, Bryant maintained his belief that their encounter was consensual but also issued an apology where he said, "I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. 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."

Man sentenced for threatening Kobe Bryant's accuser, prosecutor

 
DENVER (AP) — A man accused of sending 70 profanity-laced death threats to the accuser and prosecutor in the Kobe Bryant rape case was sentenced Monday to nine months in federal prison.

Cedric Augustine, 38, of Long Beach, Calif., pleaded guilty in March to a single felony count of making interstate threats.

A mental evaluation had concluded Augustine was mentally disabled but able to make decisions for himself. Visibly frightened, he broke down in tears several times during Monday's hearing.

FBI agent Craig Byrkit testified that Augustine had left 69 telephone messages and one letter threatening violence and to blow up the Eagle County Courthouse.

The sexual assault charge against the Los Angeles Lakers star was dropped in September 2004 after his accuser said she no longer wanted to participate in the case.

She and Bryant later reached an undisclosed settlement in her civil lawsuit against him. Bryant denied assaulting the woman and said they had consensual sex.

Two other people have pleaded guilty to making threats against the accuser. John Roche of Iowa was sentenced to four months in prison and $1,000 fine. Patrick Graber, a Swiss man living in California, was sentenced to three years in prison.
 
http://www.courttv.com/trials/bryant/062805_ap.html