s_knight8

http://www.vaildaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030709/NEWS/307090101

Kathy Redmond, founder of the National Coalition Against Violent
Athletes and a **** victim herself, said hospital visits after alleged
***ual assaults are to help gather physical evidence.

"Physical evidence is a **** kit, and she would not have done that if
his ***** had not been in her," said Redmond. "A ***ual assault victim
has to go to a hospital where they take swab samples. Then they
examine for tears and abrasions. In ****, you're not aroused, so there
are always tears and abrasions. It's the only scientific evidence that
exists."

Victims don't do that if they're working a scam, said Redmond.

"They're painful, and if she was working a scam it's the one certain
way that her claim could be refuted," said Redmond. "It's ludicrous
that she would voluntarily do that."

Vail taxi dispatcher and driver Terry O'Brien, 38, took three members
of Bryant's entourage, who were staying at The Lodge and Spa at
Cordillera, to Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs, at about 2:30
a.m., July 2, where Bryant had checked into the emergency room.
O'Brien said he was paid a fare of $372 by Michael Ortiz, one of
Bryant's bodyguards.

O'Brien said that when he picked up "three big guys," at Cordillera,
"they seemed nervous and anxious."

One of the passengers said that he had to pick up someone, "a friend"
who was having "the worst day of his life," O'Brien said.

They didn't talk much. The same passenger went on to say that he
didn't know if he would have a job after this. O'Brien described them
as "some sort of sports handlers or bodyguards."

"On the way down there, they were extremely stressed. (There was) a
sense of urgency in what they were doing and some secrecy. They asked
me to turn up the radio so I couldn't hear what was being said. I hear
them mentioning Kobe. I hear they were from Los Angeles. And I put two
and two together," he said.

"I got the vibe from the conversation it was a DUI because I heard
them mention tests and legal contingencies. And they were
troubleshooting some problem, looking at all the angles."

When O'Brien's taxi arrived at Valley View Hospital, Kobe was escorted
out of the hospital by three or four police officers.

"It doesn't make sense," O'Brien said, trying to make sense of why the
Sheriff's Office waited to arrest Bryant several days later, on Friday
the Fourth of July.

Deputies "were there," he said. "The stories reported seemed to be
missing a bunch. I couldn't understand why the Sheriff's Office had to
get a warrant for his arrest and why he had to return on the 4th,
because he seemed to be in intensive custody when I saw him."

Bryant got into the taxi and did not speak at all, O'Brien said. He
was limping slightly. O'Brien suspects it was from the surgery. Kobe
and two of the three ****nal taxi passengers went to a back entrance
of the Hotel Colorado.

O'Brien took the third passenger back to the Lodge at Cordillera.
O'Brien suspects it was to clean out the room. That third person asked
O'Brien to wait and to take him back to Glenwood Springs. But it was
5:45 a.m. and his shift was ending, so O'Brien arranged for another
taxi driver to drive the man back.

The other driver said the third man put lots of luggage in the taxi
and that he slept the whole way back to Glenwood Springs, O'Brien
recalled.

"I think the Sheriff's Office is looking pretty stupid right now,"
O'Brien said. "(What) I saw was a little mysterious. The way it was
handled and the way he was handed off, kind of bizarre. Something was
definitely amiss."

"It seems like something was going on behind the scenes that we don't
know about yet," he said. "I don't want to discredit Bryant at all. My
gut instinct is that he's innocent. ... This is totally contradictory
to the image he has."