Kobe Bryant's untimely death at age 41 has led to a mass outpouring of mourning in the sports world and beyond, but let's be clear, the man (probably) got away with raping a 19-year-old woman in 2003. Others have written at length about this, but today's New York Times did a nice job summing things up. The screen shot below points out that the case was pretty open and shut - the victim reported the incident immediately, there was significant tearing and blood in/near her vagina, and both she and Kobe had blood on their clothing. Kobe never denied the sex, he just claimed it was consensual, but based on what the prosecutors had and his full-throated attacks on her, I think we all understand what has happening.
What Kobe did is what ever rich and powerful man has done - he vilified his victim through his lawyer, who slut shamed her in court and "outed" her by name, resulting in unrelenting media attention, threats to her and her family and a very sensible decision to accept what I assume was a multi-million dollar settlement in lieu of cooperating with the prosecution. Everyone who is outraged over Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby and Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose and on and on, this is as bad, if not worse. Kobe may have been an all-time great basketball player, he may have learned from this incident and become a great father and mentor, but he was (probably) a rapist.
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