Semen from another man found in the underpants and on the body of Kobe Bryant’s accuser convinced a defense expert and a law-enforcement analyst that the woman must have had sex shortly after her encounter with the basketball star, according to transcripts from closed-door hearings released Monday.
The transcripts include testimony from Dr. Elizabeth Johnson, a defense forensics expert, in which she concludes that the accuser had sex with an unknown “Mr. X” in the hours immediately after reportedly enduring a sexual assault.
“It is likely that there was not any sperm from Mr. X inside [the accuser] at the time Mr. Bryant had his encounter with her, and that sexual contact likely occurred after [the accuser] and Mr. Bryant were together,” she said.
Her depiction of the time frame is based on the assertion that semen from Mr. X was found in the woman’s underpants, on her legs and inside her vagina — along with that from Bryant — but Bryant had no traces of Mr. X on him.
The revelation raises questions about who caused the accuser’s injuries and whether she told the truth about her sexual encounters.
The redacted transcripts made public by state District Judge Terry Ruckriegle mistakenly had been sent by e-mail last month to seven media outlets. Though rape-shield hearings are intended to allow a judge to examine an accuser’s sexual history in private to determine whether it may be relevant and admissible, the media are fighting an order by Ruckriegle barring them from disclosing the contents of the transcripts, mistakenly sent to reporters by a court clerk.
“It is with great reluctance that this court releases these transcripts,” Ruckriegle wrote in an order issued Monday. “The effect of this release is to present narrowly limited, one-sided evidence and argument to the public prior to the selection of a jury and without reference to the totality of the evidence.”
The testimony from Johnson was considered so damaging that prosecutors indicated at the time that they might reconsider going forward with the case if it were allowed at trial.
Since the judge ruled that the evidence of other sexual encounters in the three days prior to the rape exam could be admitted, however, prosecutors consulted with the 20-year-old woman and reiterated their desire to proceed with the case.
The evidence doesn’t necessarily preclude the possibility the woman was indeed sexually assaulted — regardless of what she may have done afterward. “We want to remind people that this is just one piece of evidence,” said Cynthia Stone, spokeswoman for the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault. “You can have sex with other people. But the moment one person forces you to have sex against your will, that’s rape. That is really the only question in this trial — not whether this woman had sex with other people, but whether Kobe Bryant forced her to have sex against her will.”