Kobe on a Break-Away

Jeff Taylor | September 1, 2004

Call me cynical, but I've always thought the Kobe Bryant case turned on a few poorly understood realities. The first is timing.

A warrant for Bryant's arrest is issued over the Fourth of July holiday, a classic dead-zone where the legal folk are "out-of-pocket." Recall the murmurs of discontent that the Eagle County sheriff did this without first consulting with the prosecutor's office.

I maintain that had a prosecutor been in the loop early on, they would've covertly triggered the standard civil-settlement, hush-hush payoff deal that is routine, yet top-secret, when johnsons of the rich and famous get a little too frisky.

Instead, once Kobe was arrested Eagle County District Attorney Mark Hurlbert really had no choice but to charge Kobe with rape. Elected sheriffs in rural place like Eagle County can have enormous influence on a community. That is another basic reality that is often overlooked. Hurlbert would've had to be completely comfortable with telling the world his local sheriff was, in effect, a rube to decline to bring charges after Kobe's arrest.

Accordingly, even if Hurlbert found the case less than air-tight and his complaining witness bed-bug crazy, he had little choice but to slog ahead. Until now, when his witness has reportedly bailed on him.

Back to you sheriff.

Comments

|9.2.04 @ 1:10AM|#

Maybe the first seven inches were consensual!!?

The first seven inches of what?

|9.2.04 @ 1:44AM|#

Sweet, innocent child: Wait until you're in middle school and you can ask your teacher. Don't ask your mommy, because it will make her face red.

And just FYI to the rest of you foul-mouthed America-haters.. this ribaldry over "size" is totally sexist, inappropriate, and off the mark. The bottom line is that my hubby is a good provider and that is.. good enough.

|9.2.04 @ 7:35AM|#

How do you know the Kobejohnson was too frisky? I subscribe to Artie's theory (from the Howard Stern show, for some reason they didn't bleep this despite BLATANT political-incorrectness!).

Maybe the first seven inches were consensual!!?

|9.2.04 @ 8:20AM|#

Jeff,

I'm not sure, but are you trumpeting the hush-money method of "justice" over the rule of law?

|9.2.04 @ 9:29AM|#

I for one am very happy that we won't be subjected to another drawn-out celebrity trial, and that LA won't be in danger of another riot if, by some freak chance, that man was found guilty.

The "accuser" is going to get a huge, fat paycheck. She can also cash in her 15 minutes and get even more money from doing a photoshoot for Playboy, or maybe a movie with John Wayne Bobbit. Not a bad return for those 7 plus inches.

Stewart Vardaman|9.2.04 @ 9:35AM|#

In any case, Kobe deserves to lose every bit of the millions he's going to lose, just for being stupid.

|9.2.04 @ 11:15AM|#

Of course the fact that the accuser says she is going to go forward with a civil trial exposes her as a shakedown artist. She claims she couldn't testify in a criminal trial because of the violation of her privacy, but in a civil trial she will have even fewer privacy protections (discovery, interrogatories, etc.).

|9.2.04 @ 12:17PM|#

or, she'll get a lot less death threats in a civil suit than a criminal one?

sports fans are weird.