Bryant accuser files civil lawsuit
Tuesday, August 10, 2004 Posted: 3:18 PM EDT (1918 GMT)
DENVER, Colorado (Reuters) -- The woman who accuses basketball star Kobe Bryant of rape sued the Los Angeles Laker in federal court Tuesday for an unspecified amount of monetary damages.
In the lawsuit filed in federal court in Denver, the woman under the name of "Jane Doe" claimed Bryant raped her when she was bent over a chair in his hotel room in a Vail-area resort last year -- a claim that matches the criminal charge against him.
Bryant, 25, who is scheduled to go on trial in criminal court in Eagle, Colorado, later this month, has pleaded not guilty and said the two had consensual sex on June 30, 2003.
Bryant's criminal attorney Pamela Mackey was not available to comment.
The judge in the criminal case last week expanded a gag order on everyone involved in the case after the accuser's lawyers, John Clune and Lin Wood, said on national television that mistakes by court staff that identified the women meant that she may need to reconsider testifying at the upcoming criminal trial.
In the civil lawsuit, the woman who is now 20, claims that when "she was bent over the chair and forced by defendant Bryant to remain in that position, defendant Bryant sexually assaulted and raped plaintiff, by unlawfully and knowingly inflicting sexual intrusion and penetration of her vagina against her will and without her consent."