Analysts say documents unlikely to hurt Bryant

updated 7:06 p.m. ET Oct. 2, 2004

EAGLE, Colo. - The release of previously sealed documents from the failed sexual assault case against Kobe Bryant answered some questions, but probably will not hurt the NBA star in the lawsuit filed by his accuser, experts said.

In response to requests from news organizations, the Eagle County sheriff’s department Friday released 354 pages of investigators’ reports, lists of evidence, witness statements and other records.

Included was a transcript of investigators’ interview with the then-19-year-old woman who accused Bryant of raping her in his room at the Vail-area resort where she worked in June 2003. Some details of her statement had never before been made public. Some were disclosed months ago, long before the charge was dismissed against Bryant at the woman’s request.

“Her statement was strong enough to get the case filed but it never lifted the case beyond that minimum standard,” said Larry Pozner, former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “All this is prurient interest. The question is whether the prosecution is going to own up to it and show us the evidence that sunk their boat.”

Prosecutors next week are expected to release other previously sealed documents that could provide a fuller picture of the case. They have said they believed a jury would have convicted Bryant, but only if the woman had been willing to testify.

Attorneys for Bryant, 26, initially fought the media requests for the documents, arguing they contained potentially embarrassing, sensitive information and that Bryant’s privacy rights outweighed the public’s right to view the material.

They abandoned those arguments last week, saying they would no longer object to releasing records as long as prosecutors made sure that the material showed both sides of the case. Bryant’s attorney Pamela Mackey did not return a call after the sheriff’s department released the documents Friday.

“The government might get its good headlines this weekend, but I suspect that as more information becomes public, we will learn the real reasons why this case did not go to trial,” said former prosecutor Craig Silverman.

Neither he nor Pozner believed the newly public information would have much effect on the accuser’s lawsuit pending in Denver federal court. Both expect that case to end with a confidential monetary settlement.

“He has better things to do with his life,” Pozner said. “He’s going to end up paying some money, not because there’s a case but because he’s tired of plane trips to Colorado and the disruption to his life.”

In a Sept. 22 letter, Mackey told District Attorney Mark Hurlbert that she expected him to release documents favorable to both sides. She listed several that were favorable to Bryant, including a letter from the accuser a month before the trial was to begin in which she retracted statements she had made to police a year earlier.

Pozner said any retractions could have dramatically undermined her credibility in the eyes of a jury.

Among the documents released Friday were police interviews and statements from the accuser and two people who saw her or spoke with her on the night of the alleged attack.

In her interview, she told investigators that Bryant became aggressive after several minutes of consensual kissing. She said he grabbed her by the neck and ignored her pleas to stop. She said there was no doubt he heard her “because every time I said ‘No’ he tightened his hold around me.”

Her former boyfriend, Matt Herr, told police that she phoned him shortly after the encounter and told him that Kobe Bryant had raped her. She made a similar statement to hotel bellman and high-school friend Bobby Pietrack, who told police she appeared shaken and was crying as she left the hotel to go home.

However, the first person the woman saw after her encounter with Bryant, resort night auditor Trina McKay, said she saw the woman as she was leaving to go home, and “she did not look or sound as if there had been any problem.”

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