Graphic Testimony in Bryant Hearing

A sheriff’s detective testified Thursday that the 19-year-old resort worker accusing Kobe Bryant of rape told police that the Laker star placed his arms around her neck and forced her to have sex, despite her protests and tears.

But the woman also told investigators she went willingly to Bryant’s room late at night, sneaking through the hotel kitchen to get there. And testimony indicated that there were no bruises or marks on the woman’s neck or shoulders a day after the encounter.

Eagle County Sheriff’s Det. Doug Winters, questioned during a preliminary hearing, testified that the woman said Bryant repeatedly asked her not to tell anyone and made her promise not to before letting her leave his room June 30 at an Edwards, Colo., resort.

The hearing, which included riveting testimony from Winters and contentious questioning from Bryant attorney Pamela Mackey, lasted more than five hours and ended without a decision on whether Bryant will stand trial on a felony sexual assault charge.

Eagle County Judge Frederick Gannett ordered the hearing continued on Wednesday. Bryant, 25, remains free on $25,000 bail. He has denied raping the woman, saying that they had consensual sex.

Bryant’s accuser was not in court, leaving Winters to give, in explicit detail, the first public account of the woman’s story. The detective was aggressively challenged by Mackey, who was warned by the judge for using the accuser’s name in open court.

The hearing was covered by some 300 reporters and camera crews, most of whom were forced to stay outside because the proceeding took place in a small courtroom and was closed to cameras and recording devices.

Many experts were surprised there was any testimony at all, anticipating the defense would waive its right to a hearing and let Bryant plead not guilty at an arraignment. The Laker guard, a five-time NBA All-Star, flew in for the hearing from Hawaii, where the Lakers had ended training camp. He arrived 90 minutes before the hearing with his attorneys, bodyguards and agent. He remained expressionless throughout the proceeding, his eyes locked on Winters, the day’s only witness.

Winters testified that the woman told him the encounter began with mutual flirting during a tour of the resort and ended with forced vaginal intercourse while she leaned over a chair. Bryant held her neck throughout the five-minute assault, the woman told Winters.

She told Winters that she broke into tears after twice telling Bryant “in a normal tone” to stop, then became more forceful, grabbing his hands and prying them from her neck. Afterward, the woman cleaned up in the bathroom, promised Bryant not to tell anyone what happened, then ran downstairs to the lobby, meeting a bellman who had seen the pair during the tour of the hotel, the woman told Winters. The bellman, Bobby Pietrack, became the first person to hear the woman’s story.

The woman drove home and made her allegations to police the next day. Winters interviewed her for a short time at her parents’ Eagle home and later for about an hour at the Eagle County sheriff’s office.

Under cross-examination from Bryant attorney Mackey, Winters said he saw no bruises on the woman during the interviews. He also said the woman told a nurse at a Glenwood Springs hospital that evening that Bryant had insisted she kiss his penis before allowing her to leave his hotel room -- something the woman did not tell Winters.

Winters also said DNA tests showed that the woman’s blood was found on the inside of Bryant’s T-shirt. The detective said she had told him she bled from the assault.

Mackey aggressively challenged Winters’ testimony and the physical evidence, which consisted of three photographs presented by Deputy Dist. Atty. Gregory Crittenden. One photograph showed a small bruise on the accuser’s left jaw; the others were of what the prosecution said were vaginal injuries from the assault.

Mackey suggested that small scrapes, visible only on a magnified, dye-enhanced photograph, were caused by a speculum during an examination of the woman’s genital area by hospital staff.

A short time later, Mackey brought the proceeding to a halt when she asked Winters whether the woman’s injuries might also be “consistent with a person who has had sex with three different men in three days.”

The judge called for a recess, emptying the courtroom and telling attorneys from both sides to meet him in his chambers. Mackey was scolded earlier by Gannett when she used the accuser’s name six times during her cross-examination.

She told the judge she would write herself “a big note” not to use the name again. Countered Gannett: “Or I could get you a big muzzle.”

Mackey continued to press the detective, particularly about the absence of bruises anywhere on the woman’s body. Winters said he did not even see the bruise on her jaw during his interview with her.

“She talks [about] how Mr. Kobe Bryant grabbed her neck and choked her,” Mackey asked Winters. “You looked at her neck to see?”

After Winters said he had indeed examined the woman for injuries, Mackey asked if he could see the bruises.

“Not from the front, no,” Winters said.

“Not a red mark?” Mackey asked.

“That’s correct,” he said.

“Not a scratch?” she asked.

“That’s correct,” he said.

Most legal experts had predicted that the defense would waive the hearing and go directly to trial, speculating that lurid testimony in open court would be damaging to Bryant.

But Mackey sought to turn the hearing to Bryant’s advantage by challenging Winters at every turn. Observers thought she succeeded.

“So far, the prosecution case is weaker than expected,” said Craig Silverman, a former Denver deputy district attorney who sat in the courtroom.

Crittenden conducted the direct examination of the detective, which surprised some legal analysts because the attorney had suffered a seizure in court during a murder trial 48 days ago. A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office had said at the time that Crittenden was not expected to play a key role in the Bryant case.

However, Mark Hurlbert, the district attorney who brought the charge against Bryant, and Ingrid Bakke, a deputy district attorney and sexual assault specialist on loan from Boulder County, let Crittenden do all the talking.

Mackey made repeated objections to what she said were Crittenden’s leading questions, and Gannett sustained most of them, at one point telling the prosecutor sarcastically, “We took different evidence classes.”

The cross-examination will continue Wednesday, and Gannett hinted that he might close the remainder of the hearing. The judge denied two attempts Thursday by Bryant’s attorneys to have the hearing closed, once before it began and again during a break.

However, Gannett cleared the courtroom during testimony from Winters about an interview authorities conducted with Bryant the day after the incident; the defense argued that Bryant’s statements could be inadmissible. It is unclear whether Bryant was in custody at the time of the interview and whether he was read his Miranda rights.

Bryant, who had been in Hawaii at training camp, arrived at the Eagle County Justice Center in a white SUV, part of a three-vehicle convoy. Wearing a dark blazer and mustard-colored polo shirt without a tie, he walked inside through a metal detector.

Concealed were Bryant’s new tattoos, one on his biceps of a crown and butterfly wings over his wife’s name and another on his right wrist of his toddler daughter, Natalia.

The Lakers have stood by Bryant, who had arrived a day late to the team’s Hawaii training camp because of an undisclosed illness. He practiced with teammates for several days but did not play in the Lakers’ first two exhibition games.

There was no word about when he would rejoin the team, although he vowed last week to play this season. He also said last weekend that he was “terrified” about the prospects of the case moving forward.

Bryant was in Eagle County last June for knee surgery, which was performed the morning after the sexual encounter.

Winters said Bryant arrived at the hotel with two bodyguards and met the woman while she was checking them in. She showed them to his room on the first floor, and Bryant pulled her aside and asked her to come back later to give him a tour.

“It was more of a secretive thing,” Winters said. “She came back to the front desk, then went the back way to Kobe’s room,” avoiding Bryant’s bodyguards.

During the tour, Bryant complimented the woman on her appearance and her height. “She laughed at his jokes and thanked him for his compliments,” Winters said she told him.

He invited her to his room, and Winters initially said she lifted her dress to show him a tattoo on her back. Later in the hearing, the detective amended the statement, saying he had “confused two interviews,” and that the woman showed Bryant a tattoo on her ankle.

The woman declined Bryant’s offer to join him in a hot tub, telling him her shift was about to end and she wanted to go home. Bryant then hugged her, which led to about five minutes of consensual kissing, the detective testified.

The kissing led to groping and the woman, according to the detective, began to resist. After she turned away from him to leave the room, “he grabbed her around the neck and moved with her to block her movements,” Winters said.

Winters said she could still breathe. Bryant forced her over a chair, let go of her neck with one hand and pulled down her panties.

She said, “ ‘No,’ ” Winters said.

Henson and Abrahamson reported from Eagle, Colo. Teaford reported from Los Angeles.