"She wanted money, right? From the get-go, that's what she wanted," says Michelle White, 37, taking a five-minute break from her sales clerk job at CVS.
Co-worker Peggy Velasquez, smoking Marlboro Lights and sipping Hawaiian Punch from a straw, nods empathically. "He's got the looks. He's got money. I don't think he has to ask for anything."
| _____From The Post_____
• The collapse of the Kobe Bryant rape case resulted from extensive negotiations.
• Michael Wilbon: Bryant's case dragged on too long.
• Rape victim advocates say the case is a setback.
• Bryant's apology leaves much unresolved.
• Bryant's rape trial ends when a Colorado judge dismisses the felony sexual assualt charge.
• Bryant's public image will need to be repaired.
• Thomas Boswell: The case may have been dismissed, but many questions remain.
_____On Our Site_____
• Bryant's statement following the dismissal.
• Case timeline. _____Multimedia_____
• Video: The criminal case against Bryant collapsed. _____Live Online_____
• Jeralyn Merritt , a criminal defense attorney took questions about the verdict and case.
• Read the transcript. _____Kobe Bryant's Bio_____
Name: Kobe Bean Bryant.
Age-Birth Date: 26, Aug. 23, 1978.
Education: Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, Pa. Bryant led Lower Merion to the Class AAAA state title in 1996, then became the sixth high school player in history to go straight to the NBA.
Career: Drafted No. 13 by the Charlotte Hornets and immediately traded to the Lakers, who signed him to a three-year, $3.5 million contract. Through the 2003-2004 season, the 6-foot-6 guard who wears No. 8 averaged 21.8 points and won three world championships. On July 15, he signed a $136.4 million, seven-year contract.
Family: Wife, Vanessa; daughter, Natalia Diamante; parents, former pro player Joe "Jelly Bean" Bryant and Pam Bryant.
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The facts remain: Bryant, unbeknown to the Lakers, flew to Eagle, Colo., on June 30, 2003, for knee surgery. He checked in at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera about 10 p.m. Pretty much everything else after that depends on who is talking.
But what's known is that the front desk clerk, then 19, gave Bryant a tour of the hotel and eventually ended up in his room.
He said the sex was consensual. She said it was rape.
On July 18, 2003, Bryant was charged with felony sexual assault. That day, at a tearful news conference at Staples Center in Los Angeles -- with his wife, Vanessa, sitting next to him, holding his hand -- Bryant admitted to adultery but declared his innocence of the charge.
Rape victim advocates were furious about the handling of the case. Judge Terry Ruckriegle allowed evidence about the accuser's sexual activities in the days immediately surrounding the incident. Following that, transcripts dealing with her sexual history were inadvertently released to the public.
"You can have some people who think they're God's gift to women, and if someone didn't scream, yell or fight them off physically, then they're consenting," Kilpatrick, the treatment center director, says. "There's a lot of stereotypes about women saying no when they mean yes."
Not everyone, of course, sees the accuser as a victim.
Roy Black, a defense attorney, says there surely has been a settlement. "I guarantee you it's already been done. The only thing that hasn't happened is a transfer of money so it doesn't look as dirty as it is," he says.
The accuser's decision not to testify infuriated Wendy Murphy, an adjunct professor at the New England School of Law, who has been a prosecutor in rape cases.
"This is a woman who put profit above justice," Murphy says. The accuser should have been forced under subpoena to testify. Had she refused, Murphy says, she should have been jailed for contempt of court. Murphy believes the woman's lawyers pushed the case to the very eve of trial to ratchet up the monetary settlement.
"The message goes out that intimidation tactics work," she says. "You can't blame [the accuser] for feeling traumatized by the system. She's been through so much. That's not the issue. . . . She put her financial well-being above the integrity of the law itself."
In the end, no one came out of the Bryant case looking good, not the defendant, the accuser and certainly not the criminal justice system of Colorado. There were no heroes, no clear victories, no resolution of what really happened. The woman in question will always be known as Kobe Bryant's accuser, a label that won't go away no matter how much she is paid.
Bryant's status as a celebrity endorser has likely been tarnished forever, though any financial sting will be salved by his salary with the Lakers, who will pay him, over the next seven years, $136 million.
