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Kobe Bryant, accuser settle her civil lawsuit By Patrick O'Driscoll, USA TODAY
DENVER — Basketball star Kobe Bryant and the Colorado woman who accused him of rape 20 months ago have settled her civil lawsuit against him, their lawyers announced Wednesday.
Terms of the out-of-court agreement were not released. A two-sentence statement by the sides said only that the case "has been resolved to the satisfaction of both parties." It said Bryant, his 20-year-old accuser and their lawyers "have agreed that no further comments about the matter can or will be made." A motion to dismiss the case also was filed Wednesday in Denver federal court, where the woman sued the Los Angeles Lakers guard last summer. The civil suit was filed three weeks before a sexual assault case against Bryant was dropped. That followed the young woman's decision not to testify at the criminal trial. Atlanta lawyer L. Lin Wood, one of the woman's attorneys, declined to comment Wednesday. Bryant's chief counsel, Pamela Mackey of Denver, could not be reached. A Lakers spokesman said Bryant, 26, in Boston for a game, also declined to comment. The announcement came less than a week after the two sides called off a deposition by Bryant. It was to be his first statement under oath since the June 2003 encounter at a Colorado mountain resort hotel where Bryant was staying while having knee surgery at a Vail clinic. Lawyers for the woman, then employed at the resort, were likely to grill Bryant about his sexual history in the deposition, which was scheduled last Friday in Orange County, Calif., where he lives. The woman, who is now married and expecting a baby in May, had sought unspecified damages. The case triggered a media frenzy around Bryant, then one of the NBA's brightest young stars. Bryant, married and a father of one, admitted having sex with her but said the woman, then 19, had consented. Legal experts who had followed the case closely said the canceled deposition was a sure sign that a settlement was in the works. "The time to settle it was before that deposition was taken," said Karen Steinhauser, a University of Denver law professor. "When Kobe Bryant can write a check to make this ... go away, the question is, why take the risk of losing?" Denver trial lawyer Larry Pozner said the case was too complex to estimate a settlement amount. "In Kobe Bryant terms, the check will be small," he said. "In her terms, the check will be gigantic. Kobe just bought her a home." The settlement doesn't mean endorsers will flock to Bryant. Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Nutella dropped him after the sexual assault charge was filed. Bryant's five-year, $45 million deal with Nike continues. "Kobe Bryant is currently persona non grata to the endorsement party," Roy Clark of the Dallas-based endorsement firm The Marketing Arm said last fall. Sports marketers have estimated Bryant lost $4 million to $6 million in endorsement contracts after his arrest. Wendy Murphy, a professor at the New England School of Law and a former prosecutor, said the settlement suggests the rich can buy their way out of trouble. But she also criticized the woman's decision to drop the assault case last summer. "No victim should be proud of herself for taking a dive in a criminal case, no matter how many zeros in a civil settlement," Murphy said. Cynthia Stone, spokeswoman for the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said she hopes the settlement brings some sense of justice and closure for the woman, 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 would clarify that nothing about an alleged victim's sexual history would be made public unless the judge determines it is relevant to the case. *** Roscoe Nance in McLean, Va. and the Associated Press contributed to this report. |
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