Suit settlement
ends Bryant saga

The lawsuit, filed three weeks before the criminal case against Bryant collapsed last summer, sought unspecified damages for mental injuries, public scorn and humiliation the woman said she has suffered since their June 2003 encounter at the Vail-area hotel where she worked. The woman hasn’t commented publicly on the case.

Bryant, a married father of one, apologized for his “behavior that night and for the consequences she has suffered,” but insisted the sex was consensual.

Shortly after jury selection began in the criminal case, prosecutors in Eagle County dropped the single felony sexual assault count after the woman told them she couldn’t take part in a trial.

Like the criminal case, the civil case ultimately would have rested on the testimony of a woman Bryant’s attorneys accused of being a promiscuous, attention-seeking liar. Among other things, the defense suggested she had sex with someone after leaving Bryant and before she contacted authorities — a claim her attorneys hotly contested.

Speculation that a settlement was close increased Monday after L. Lin Wood, one of the woman’s attorneys, said Bryant’s long-awaited deposition three days earlier had been called off.

Colorado law makes it difficult for plaintiffs in civil cases to win more than about $733,000. Wood has said that amount was too low to fairly compensate the woman for the harm she claimed to have suffered

Sports marketers have estimated Bryant lost $4 million to $6 million in endorsement contracts after his arrest. He has not appeared in Nike commercials since the allegations surfaced, and McDonald’s and Nutella did not renew their deals with him after his arrest.

Cynthia Stone, spokeswoman for the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said she hopes the settlement brings some sense of justice and closure for the accuser, who moved from state to state to avoid media scrutiny last year.

“The defense team in the criminal case managed to get reams of paper filled with rumor and innuendo about this young woman’s prior sexual history out into the public,” Stone said.

As a result, victims’ advocates are lobbying for a bill intended to tighten Colorado’s “rape shield” law. The bill, which has passed the state Senate, would prohibit discussion of an alleged victim’s sexual history during a preliminary hearing unless a judge rules otherwise.

In Eagle, the woman’s hometown, former Mayor Roxie Deane was cheered by news of the settlement. She said the case put the town on the map, which wasn’t necessarily positive. “Eagle is a great place. It needs to be known for other things,” she said.

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