Posted on 07/14/2003 10:32:41 AM PDT by bedolido
E A G L E, Colo., July 14— The nation knows basketball player Kobe Bryant's accuser only as a namless 19 year-old hotel worker, but her hometown friend says everyone in the small town of Eagle, Colo., knows exactly who she is and what she has been through.
Starlene Bray, a friend of the alleged victim, says the young woman is upset over a media stakeout outside her home and reports of emotional difficulties she's recently suffered.
"She's kind of in hiding right now," said Starlene Bray on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "She's been back and forth from Denver, kind of trying to avoid the media and the press right now," she said.
Bray says it seems as if everyone in the town of Eagle, a community of just 3,700 people, knows that her friend is the young woman who has accused Bryant of sexual assualt. And reports of the young woman's emotional problems has made the attention even worse, says Bray.
A recent story in the Vail Daily newspaper reported that the young woman sought doctor's care this spring for serious emotional problems that resulted from the death of a friend and a breakup.
Bray, 19, says it's true that her friend did seek help, but she says that had nothing to do with the young woman's allegations against Bryant.
"She did seek some medical help," Bray says. "She knew she needed it, so she went and got it. She was definitely emotionally fragile, but I don't think it had anything to do with what happened," she said.
Bryant's accuser, a former high school cheerleader, says the 24-year-old NBA star attacked her while he was staying at the hotel where she works on June 30. The media has not released her name because of policies intended to protect the privacy of victims of alleged sex crimes.
Reporters Flock to Small Town
Meanwhile, a steady stream of reporters from around the country have been circling the cul-de-sac where the young woman's middle-class home is located.
The young blonde has been described by her friends as a talented piano player. She sang in her high school choir and tried out for American Idol.
Bray described the young woman as "a good friend, trustworthy, thoughtful, warm-hearted."
Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant has been accused of sexual assault. In a newspaper interview, he said he "would never do something like that." (ABCNEWS.com)
Officials at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera in Edwards, Colo., where the young woman claims the attack took place, say Bryant was a guest there June 30-July 2. Byrant was in Colorado for knee surgery at a Vail clinic.
Bryant surrendered to authorities on July 4 and was released after posting $25,000 bond. Prosecutors have said they expect to decide this week whether to file charges. Bryant's attorney says he is innocent.
Bryant Proclaims Innocence
Bryant denied the allegations and said he "would never do something like that," in a story printed in Sunday's Los Angeles Times "When everything comes clean, it will all be fine, you'll see," Bryant said.
Bray says she has no doubts about her friend's story.
"Well, when I first talked to her, she seemed really distraught in the fact that it had happened to her," Bray said. "She didn't know what was going to happen to her. She was just scared," she said.
Bray says the young woman encouraged her to speak publicly "to tell everybody who she was and what kind of person she was and to try to get the newspapers and everything like that to settle down on her."
Accuracy counts.
FWIW, there's a BIG difference between commenting on the "subject" of a posted story, and commenting on fellow freepers.
I was accurate to the post I responded to.
Promise?
So does Kobe always go around preying upon "nut cases"? Does he always take advantage of similarly minded women?
Oh...I didn't know that there was any reasonable doubt that Bryant initiated this whole thing.
He didn't invite her into his room, then, eh?
Oh, of course...how wrong of me to conclude that Bryant was the initiator in this thing...obviously the 19 yr old teen girl was in control of the whole thing. Ya know when you're only talking about a multi-millionaire celeb who is a prime guest (where the customer's is for certain always right), who was he to fend off the advances of this mere teen-ager?
So, no, my conclusion is not already 100% drawn. (Altho, at least I haven't been arrested for abusing my wife)
While sports celebs don't exactly have to prowl around for women in a world of sports groupies, it doesn't sound to me like she qualified as a groupie.
If it was only adultery, he was still a sexual predator seeking to take advantage of her. "Consent" only removes the criminal element of this, not the moral stigma attached.
As it stands now, this unstable 19-year-old "American Idol" wannabe who attempted suicide weeks ago and bragged to her friends about her encounter with an NBA star, requested to bring room service to Kobe.
What service was actually being offered is anyone's guess.
Kobe's an idiot and an adulterer, but not a rapist, IMO.
The girl is a fool who was not raised with enough morals and smarts to know she shouldn't enter a strange man's room in the middle of the night.
A product of the MTV/Will & Grace generation.
Are you consistent? Where were you when the Clintonistas needed you? You should have been, as wideawake said on a thread yesterday, "accusing Juanita Broaddrick of being a whore for going to the hotel room of a celebrity adulterer."
I guess you would describe Broaddrick the same way, eh?
For you to equate adultery with rape is mind-boggling. And proof of the over-wrought inconsistencies of those defending a stupid girl's indiscretion.
Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were an eyewitness who was there. Perhaps you better mention that to Kobweb's attorneyS. You could be valuable to them...
Unless, of course, you weren't there and you're merely pontificating upon something you know very little about...which could qualify you for the July 24 Kobot Kobhead award for spin meistering...
But could that be true for one of your integrity?..nah...I don't see how...it must be that if you're not an eye-witness, you're omnipresent and/or omniscient...yes, yes, that must be it! Do I bow now or do you first give me some prophetic scriptures about your messiahship?
There was nothing in that set-up that would give a woman reason to question the situation.
Additionally, she left the encounter bleeding and immediately told two people of what had just transpired. She never laughed about the event afterwards and certainly didn't "brag" about it.
And most people paying attention now know that Clinton had a long and varied record of this sort...and worse.
No, I don't think that situation in any way mirrors Kobe's for the reasons I stated earlier.
But your type will continually push all the emotional buttons, even if they have nothing to do with this case, and you'll consistently ignore the evidence of her instability and questionable motives.
I think your agenda is not at all what you state it to be.
I was right. I knew it. You're omniscient, after all. You've seen right through me. (Please don't tell anyone else...my hidden agenda is precious to me).
That'll be easy. You got it.
When it becomes clear all you've got on your side is lame sarcasm, the debate is over.
Talk to yourself, and be nice. You know you bruise easily.
Is her friend refering to the suicide attempt as the help "she went and got". Or did she seek some help before her suicide attempt? Is her freind saying she saw a doctor after the suicide attempt?
Why do you say she's a nutcase?
You mean you commented on a hotel concierge entering a guest's room, quite possibly at his request. That happens at hotels around the world on a frequent basis. Sexual assault, though, is not an appropriate means of protest or self-defense by a guest if said guest felt intruded upon.
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