Quote:
Originally Posted by Cole436
If you don't know what you're talking about, you probably shouldn't speak up.
|
Shortly after the alleged rape, the alleged victim went to both the hospital and the police. The rape kit indicated numerous lacerations around her vagina consistent with rape. She offered to take a polygraph test when questioned by police. She also had bruising around her neck consistent with the story that Kobe had been forceful with her.
When the police questioned Kobe, he denied anything happened multiple times. Until they told him there was physical evidence. That's when he offered to pay her off. Including asking the officers "“Is there any way I can settle this whatever it is, I mean…?”
His defense was that he also got rough with the other girl he cheated on his wife with.
The victim had her name drug through the mud, namely that she had schizophrenia that required medication at one point and that she was sexually active (as a 19 year old!). Perhaps more serious, the court inadvertently released her name and address and she began to receive death threats.
With the defense allowed to enter her sexual activity into evidence, the death threats, and public humiliation, she decided to withdraw from testifying.
This was a case of how money can buy you great PR if nothing else. But fortunately we don't have to decide if the alleged victim was truthful or not. We can take Kobe's word for it:
Quote:
|
First, I want to apologize directly to the young woman involved in this incident. I want to apologize to her for my behavior that night and for the consequences she has suffered in the past year. Although this year has been incredibly difficult for me personally, I can only imagine the pain she has had to endure. I also want to apologize to her parents and family members, and to my family and friends and supporters, and to the citizens of Eagle, Colo. I also want to make it clear that I do not question the motives of this young woman. No money has been paid to this woman. She has agreed that this statement will not be used against me in the civil case. 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. 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.
|
You know what a sexual encounter that one party doesn't consent to is called? Rape.