Report: Kobe Bryant seeks accuser's text messages
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-05-26 10:14

Lawyers for basketball star Kobe Bryant are seeking to obtain records of the cell phone text messages made by the woman who has accused him of rape, it was reported on Tuesday.

The syndicated TV show "Celebrity Justice," which reported the request, said Bryant's defense team presumably wants to know if his accuser sent text messages bolstering his assertion that their sexual encounter was consensual of whether she boasted about it in any way.

The Los Angeles Lakers superstar pleaded not guilty in a Colorado courtroom earlier this month to charges that he raped the 19-year-old woman in his Colorado hotel room last June.

Police have testified that the woman told them she willingly entered Bryant's room and the two kissed, but then he sexually assaulted her.

"Celebrity Justice" cited sources at AT&T saying that text messages, like telephone numbers dialed by customers, are stored in the phone company's computer databases, allowing them to be retrieved.

Colorado prosecutors are likely to argue that releasing the accuser's text messages would violate her privacy, but the judge could order the data delivered to him in private for review to determine their relevance to the case.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys could not immediately be reached for comment.

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