主题：【纪事】科比捅出奥尼尔性骚扰过去 -- 老叶

Wire Reports

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

According to several published reports, hours after his sexual encounter with a hotel employee in Colorado, Kobe Bryant told investigators that Shaquille O'Neal, his Laker teammate at the time, had paid up to $1 million to women to keep them quiet about "situations like this."

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.

The Los Angeles Times will report in Wednesday's editions that O'Neal was informed of the comment last September- about two weeks before Laker training camp opened in Hawaii- when prosecution investigators made an unsuccessful attempt to question him. Shaq's agent, Perry Rogers, said Tuesday that the allegation in Bryant's statement was untrue and "undeserving of a response."

Previously published reports quoted Bryant's 75-minute tape-recorded interview, but one of the detectives on the case said that the comments about O'Neal came after his partner had turned off the recorder.

The report is part of a sealed file in the criminal case that was dropped earlier this month.

"Bryant made a comment to us about what another teammate does in situations like these," Det. Doug Winters wrote. "Bryant stated he should have done what Shaq does. 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."

Asked if Bryant's purported comments had strained the relationship between the two players, O'neal's agent responded. "It didn't have any impact on the relationship," Rogers said, "because Shaquille had a very professional approach to his career there and because he has had an understanding of Kobe, Kobe's interests and Kobe's priorities. Kobe has historically been shown to be interested in one person and one person alone."

Still, at least one radio station in Los Angeles reports that the reported rape incident may have led directly to the break-up of the Los Angeles Lakers.

"This is an amazing story," said John Ziegler- whose show airs weeknights on KFI AM640 in Los Angeles. "Kobe's comments could very well have robbed this city of their favorite basketball team... It has become increasingly clear that this played a huge part in why the Lakers were broken up."