Cassius Clay
07-23-2003, 01:11 PM
www.nydailynews.com/news/...3361c.html (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/103148p-93361c.html)
Kobe accuser's wounds 'shocking'
By DAN LUZADDER in Eagle, Colo.
and GREG GITTRICH in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
The teenager who says she was raped by Kobe Bryant has "shocking" and still visible injuries from the alleged attack, a friend said yesterday.
"She covers them up with makeup - mostly, I think, to hide them from herself so she is not reminded" of the attack, said Starlene Bray, who has known the teen since grade school.
Three weeks after the 19-year-old woman emerged from the L.A. Lakers star's Colorado hotel room, the injuries are still "very visible," Bray said.
She refused to describe the injuries or say where on the woman's body they were. But she did say they were severe enough to be seen plainly despite the woman's attempts to hide them with makeup.
"They were shocking," said Bray, 19, who first saw her friend on Friday - the day Bryant was charged with one count of felony sexual assault. "I try not to ask her about the injuries, and I didn't even say I saw them the first time. She's very uncomfortable about that, and not comfortable talking about how it happened," Bray said.
Krista Flannigan, spokeswoman for the Eagle County, Colo., district attorney, declined to comment on the woman's injuries.
The woman, a student at the University of Northern Colorado, charges that Bryant raped her June 30 at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera, near Vail, where she was working for the summer.
Bray said her friend told her the confrontation with Bryant was loud enough to have been heard by other guests on the same floor of the hotel. There have been published reports, unconfirmed by authorities, that guests complained about noise coming from Bryant's room.
The Daily News has learned that Bryant's bodyguards - who accompanied him to Vail for his knee surgery - did not stay on the same floor as the NBA star, which would be a typical security procedure.
"The bodyguards stayed on a separate floor," said Pete Webb, a Denver public relations consultant hired by the spa.
Bryant, 24, has admitted only to the "mistake of adultery" and insists the sex was consensual.
Meanwhile, rape counselors expressed outrage yesterday that a nationally syndicated radio host aired the name of Bryant's accuser.
Tom Leykis, whose Los Angeles-based show is aimed at young men, told Reuters it was unfair to publish Bryant's name and not his accuser's.
"That's like being raped again," said Dr. Patricia Saunders, director of Graham Windham Manhattan Medical Center in New York City. "It's a sadistic thing to do."
Originally published on July 23, 2003
Kobe accuser's wounds 'shocking'
By DAN LUZADDER in Eagle, Colo.
and GREG GITTRICH in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
The teenager who says she was raped by Kobe Bryant has "shocking" and still visible injuries from the alleged attack, a friend said yesterday.
"She covers them up with makeup - mostly, I think, to hide them from herself so she is not reminded" of the attack, said Starlene Bray, who has known the teen since grade school.
Three weeks after the 19-year-old woman emerged from the L.A. Lakers star's Colorado hotel room, the injuries are still "very visible," Bray said.
She refused to describe the injuries or say where on the woman's body they were. But she did say they were severe enough to be seen plainly despite the woman's attempts to hide them with makeup.
"They were shocking," said Bray, 19, who first saw her friend on Friday - the day Bryant was charged with one count of felony sexual assault. "I try not to ask her about the injuries, and I didn't even say I saw them the first time. She's very uncomfortable about that, and not comfortable talking about how it happened," Bray said.
Krista Flannigan, spokeswoman for the Eagle County, Colo., district attorney, declined to comment on the woman's injuries.
The woman, a student at the University of Northern Colorado, charges that Bryant raped her June 30 at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera, near Vail, where she was working for the summer.
Bray said her friend told her the confrontation with Bryant was loud enough to have been heard by other guests on the same floor of the hotel. There have been published reports, unconfirmed by authorities, that guests complained about noise coming from Bryant's room.
The Daily News has learned that Bryant's bodyguards - who accompanied him to Vail for his knee surgery - did not stay on the same floor as the NBA star, which would be a typical security procedure.
"The bodyguards stayed on a separate floor," said Pete Webb, a Denver public relations consultant hired by the spa.
Bryant, 24, has admitted only to the "mistake of adultery" and insists the sex was consensual.
Meanwhile, rape counselors expressed outrage yesterday that a nationally syndicated radio host aired the name of Bryant's accuser.
Tom Leykis, whose Los Angeles-based show is aimed at young men, told Reuters it was unfair to publish Bryant's name and not his accuser's.
"That's like being raped again," said Dr. Patricia Saunders, director of Graham Windham Manhattan Medical Center in New York City. "It's a sadistic thing to do."
Originally published on July 23, 2003