Bryant’s Attorneys Want Chance to Test Pieces of Cloth

Kobe Bryant’s attorneys asked Judge Terry Ruckriegle on Thursday to order prosecutors to hand over specific sections of two pairs of underwear worn by the woman who has accused the Laker star of sexual assault.

A forensics expert hired by the defense wants to test semen stains that attorneys Hal Haddon and Pamela Mackey allege belong to someone other than Bryant. One pair of underwear was worn by the woman when she went for a rape examination the day after she alleges Bryant sexually assaulted her at a Colorado mountain resort last summer.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation has custody of the underwear, but officials there informed defense expert Dr. Elizabeth Johnson that prosecutors had told them not to give her the material. Mackey was rebuffed by prosecutor Dana Easter in an attempt to resolve the issue Thursday.

Ruckriegle had instructed prosecutors in an earlier order to provide the defense by Feb. 28 with “all items of physical evidence related to this case which are in the possession of the CBI or Eagle County Sheriff’s Office, including cuttings, hair, clothing and fibers.”

Haddon said the CBI had “cut the crotches on several different occasions” and conducted tests. “The defense needs access to the entire piece of cloth so that it too can examine various parts of them and conduct tests it deems appropriate -- just as the law enforcement has done.”

Legal experts say the defense is trying to establish that sexual relations the woman had with partners other than Bryant in the days surrounding the alleged rape could have caused vaginal trauma.

In a separate request Thursday, Haddon asked Ruckriegle for a telephone conference before court hearings Monday and Tuesday to discuss whether the tight schedule would allow the defense’s challenge of the rape-shield statute to be addressed.

A witness subpoenaed by the defense has requested his or her testimony be delayed until March 24 unless it can be taken in its entirety on Tuesday.