Sources: Kobe Accuser Confided to Bellman

ByABC News
August 4, 2003, 4:29 PM

Aug. 4 -- A bellman at the Colorado lodge where Kobe Bryant is accused of raping a 19-year-old woman told police he saw the alleged victim after the incident and that she was visibly upset and disheveled, ABCNEWS and ESPN have learned.

Sources told ABCNEWS and ESPN, ABCNEWS' sister sports division, that the bellman, who worked with the alleged victim at Lodge & Spa at Cordillera in Edwards, Colo., told police that he saw the woman shortly after she left Bryant's room on June 30, the night of the alleged assault. The bellman, sources said, told police that she told him what happened in the Los Angeles Lakers guard's hotel room.

Bryant, 24, is charged with sexual assault for allegedly raping the college student while he was in Colorado for knee surgery in late June. The NBA superstar, who is married and has an infant daughter, has admitted committing adultery with the woman but insists the sex was consensual.

Last week, ABCNEWS reported that Bryant and his alleged victim had some intimate contact, but prosecutors will argue that she did not consent to intercourse. Bryant and the alleged victim met when he checked into the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera on June 30. Sources said she gave him a tour of the facility's hotel and spa.

The sources said the tour ended at Bryant's room, where he allegedly invited her to come inside and she accepted. The woman was in Bryant's room for less than half an hour, sources told ABCNEWS. There was some consensual contact between the NBA superstar and his accuser, but the woman says she did not consent to intercourse.

She sustained some physical injuries, sources said, which Eagle County prosecutors are expected to argue are indicative of sexual assault.

Under Colorado law, a rape can still occur if the victim consents to some sexual activity, but later withdraws her consent or refuses to give consent to other sexual activity, including intercourse. Sources said Bryant's trial could boil down to a battle of medical experts from the defense and prosecution over whether the young woman's alleged injuries indicate nonconsensual sex.