Hours after his sexual encounter with a hotel employee in Colorado, Kobe Bryant told investigators that Shaquille O’Neal, his Lakers teammate at the time, had paid up to $1 million to women to keep them quiet about “situations like this,” according to a police report.
An Eagle County, Colo., detective wrote in a report that Bryant made the comment near the end of a lengthy interrogation on July 2, 2003, about allegations that Bryant had raped the woman, then 19, in his resort hotel room.
O’Neal was informed of the comment last September, about two weeks before Lakers training camp opened in Hawaii, when prosecution investigators made an unsuccessful attempt to question him. His agent, Perry Rogers, said Tuesday that the allegation in Bryant’s statement was untrue and “undeserving of a response.”
Much of Bryant’s 75-minute interview was tape-recorded, but Det. Doug Winters wrote that the reference to O’Neal came after his partner, Det. Dan Loya, had turned off the recorder.
The incident report, a portion of which was reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, is part of the sealed file in the criminal case that was brought against Bryant last year and dropped this month. A Colorado judge has a motion before him to unseal documents from the case.
“Bryant stated he should have done what Shaq (Shaquille O’Neal) does,” Winters wrote. “Bryant stated that Shaq would pay his women not to say anything. He stated Shaq has paid up to a million dollars already for situations like this. He stated he, Bryant, treats a woman with respect, therefore they shouldn’t say anything.”
It is unclear precisely what Bryant meant by the remarks attributed to him. There have been no published reports of O’Neal ever being accused of any sex crime. Rogers said Tuesday that he did not know whether O’Neal confronted Bryant about the comments before or during the season.
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Bryant’s agent and attorneys did not return calls seeking comment.
According to sources involved in the investigation, the authorities wanted to ask O’Neal about a party he hosted at his Orlando mansion on Thanksgiving 2002, when a 22-year-old waitress working at the gathering claimed Bryant had groped her. They also wanted any information O’Neal could offer about Bryant’s behavior on road trips.