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Winton, R. (2020, February 13). The phones of victims aboard Kobe Bryant helicopter may hold clues t

o crash. Retrieved February 2, 2020, from https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-13/phones-electronics -of-those-on-kobe-bryant-helicopter-could-hold-clues-to-crash

Draper, K. (2020, January 28). Kobe Bryant and the Sexual Assault Case That Was Dropped but No

t Forgotten. Retrieved February 2, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/sports/basketball/kobe-bryant-rape-case.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

Hauser, C. (2020, February 13). Snoop Dogg Apologizes After Criticizing Gayle King Over Kobe Bryant Questions. Retrieved February 15, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/media/snoop-dogg-apologizes-gayle-king.html

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Kobe, his daughter Gianna and the 7 other victims

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Kobe, his daughter Gianna and the 7 other victims

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Sexual assault case resurfaces after the death of Kobe Bryant

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A 2003 rape accusation changed how many saw the Lakers star, but it did not change the trajectory of his career.

Bryant leaving the courtroom after a hearing in October 2003. Credit... Ed Andriesk/Getty Images

Even as Kobe Bryant moved beyond his career in the N.B.A. and into his next chapter as a Hollywood and tech mogul, he could never fully leave the ugliest part of his past behind.

Bryant - among nine people, including his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, who died on Sunday in a helicopter crash outside Los Angeles - was charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman in 2003. But as in the vast majority of cases involving accusations of sexual violence, there was no clear resolution. There was no verdict.

Prosecutors dropped the case just before it was scheduled to go to trial, citing the accuser's unwillingness to testify. A lawsuit the woman filed against Bryant ended in a settlement, the details of which have never been made public.

In the era before #MeToo - the societal reckoning with the frequent sexual harassment and abuse women endure at work and in their personal lives - Bryant resumed a career that had never really paused. Throughout the 2003-04 season, while the case was still being litigated, he flew back and forth between court appearances in Colorado and games,often arriving just minutes before tip-off.

The Lakers made the N.B.A. finals that season but lost their bid for a fourth championship in five seasons. Bryant, however, would win two more N.B.A. titles, plus two Olympic gold medals, before his retirement in 2016, and he continued his evolution into a global celebrity, an international ambassador for both his sport and Nike, his major sponsor.

Yet in 2018, just seven months after he won an Academy Award for best animated short film, Bryant was dropped from the jury of a film festival.

"This is an urgent time to say NO to toxic and violent behavior against women," read a petition urging organizers of the Animation Is Film Festival to disassociate themselves from Bryant.

As he had in the past, Bryant declined to discuss the sexual assault case. He said he was "disappointed" with the decision of the festival organizers but was now focused on changing the world "through diverse stories, characters and leadership."

For a moment, Bryant was back where he had been in 2003 - someone who, like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, operated at the pinnacle of his profession but stood accused of a terrible crime.

Weinstein is currently being tried in a rape case in New York City, the rare celebrity who has had to face such criminal charges.

The case against Bryant began on June 30, 2003, when he checked into the Cordillera Lodge and Spa in Edwards, Colo. He was there to have a knee operation at a clinic in nearby Vail.

After being led to his room by a concierge, Bryant asked her to return later and give him a private tour of the property. She did, and then Bryant invited her into his room. They both said later that they began kissing, but what happened in the next few minutes became the heart of the dispute. The woman told the police that Bryant had raped her. Bryant said they had consensual sex.

Prosecutors seemed to have a strong case. According to court documents, an examination of the woman at a hospital revealed a bruise on her neck and tears in her vaginal wall. Both her underwear and Bryant's shirt were bloody. Bryant told the police he had not explicitly asked for consent.

While the issue of consent has long been at the heart of sex crime laws, how it is understood and taught has evolved - in part because of high-profile cases like the one against Bryant. "No means no" has given way to "yes means yes," and the idea of explicit consent has become the standard, rather than an expectation that an objecting participant must say no.

Almost immediately the case against Bryant became a news media circus, the biggest celebrity prosecution since the O.J. Simpson trial. Quickly though, the accuser's reputation came under attack. Bryant's lawyer, Pamela Mackey, said the woman's name in open court six times during one hearing - even though the police and court officials had tried to preserve her anonymity - and asked if her injuries could have been caused "by having sex with three men in three days." Television crews camped outside the home of the accuser's parents, and her name was leaked by the court system three times.

Like the Simpson case a decade before, the Bryant case quickly became about much more than what had happened in that hotel room. It was seen through the historical prism of white women falsely accusing black men of sexual violence (the woman in the Bryant case was white). At the same time, the case sparked commentary that perpetuated stereotypes about false accusations of rape.

After the case was dropped, Bryant issued a lengthy statement, apologizing to the woman and acknowledging her perspective of their encounter, which is farther than most public apologies go. "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual," he said in statement, "I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did."

With the legal troubles behind him, Bryant created an alter ego, calling himself "Black Mamba" - after Africa's deadliest snake, which figured in the 2003 movie "Kill Bill."

"The whole process for me was trying to figure out how to cope with this," Bryant told The Washington Post in 2018. "I wasn't going to be passive and let this thing just swallow me up."

Eventually there were Mamba shoes, a Mamba Sports Academy and the nickname "Mambacita" for Gianna, the second-born of the four daughters Bryant shared with his wife, Vanessa.

Before the sexual assault case, Bryant was sometimes in the shadow of Shaquille O'Neal, playing Robin to Shaq's Batman. After Bryant adopted the Mamba persona, he emerged as his own man. He helped create the dissension that led Phil Jackson to retire and the Lakers to trade O'Neal, though Jackson returned to coach Bryant and the Lakers again.

But years after saying "I also want to make it clear that I do not question the motives of this young woman," Bryant seemingly did just that.

To explain why he would not comment on the death of Trayvon Martin, the black teenager who was shot to death while returning home from a convenience store, he had a conversation with the journalist Jemele Hill. "He was speaking from the experience of someone who had been on trial for sexual assault," she wrote in a column on Monday, "and, in his mind, had been wrongfully accused." Bryant later apologized to Martin's family.

And in 2018, reflecting on the sponsors that cut ties with him after he was arrested, including McDonald's and Coca-Cola, Bryant said they did so because he was too "gritty."

Later in his life, Bryant became a big supporter of women's athletics. He took his daughter Gianna to watch the Connecticut Huskies basketball team, recorded voice overs for the N.C.A.A. women's basketball tournament and talked constantly about the W.N.B.A.

And at those 2018 Oscars? Hours after Frances McDormand, winner of the Best Actress award, gave a powerful speech about the need to include more womenin the film business, she was hobnobbing with Bryant at a post-show party.

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Kobe Bryant and the Sexual Assault Case That Was Dropped but Not Forgotten

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A 2003 rape accusation changed how many saw the Lakers star, but it did not change the trajectory of his career. Even as Kobe Bryant moved beyond his career in the N.B.A. and into his next chapter as a Hollywood and tech mogul, he could never fully leave the ugliest part of his past behind.

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Snoop Dogg apologized on Wednesday to Gayle King, the lead anchor of "CBS This Morning," after criticizing her over a recent interview in which she brought up a 2003 rape allegation against Kobe Bryant.

Last week, Ms. King was subjected to a social media backlash in which her critics pointed to an excerpt from her interview with Lisa Leslie, a former W.N.B.A. star and a longtime friend of Mr. Bryant, posted on the "CBS This Morning" Twitter account.

The excerpt featured Ms. King and Ms. Leslie speaking exclusively about the rape allegation against Mr. Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash with his daughter and seven other people on Jan. 26.

Among those criticizing Ms. King after the interview last week was Snoop Dogg, who said in a since-deleted Instagram video, "Why you attacking us?"

"Respect the family and back off," he added, using obscenities to describe Ms. King in a video viewed more than a million times. He also posted several pictures of Ms. King, as well as her friend Oprah Winfrey, posing with Harvey Weinstein, the film mogul who has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 90 women.

But on Wednesday, Snoop Dogg apologized in an Instagram post, saying that he had "overreacted" and that he was praying for Ms. King as well as for Vanessa Bryant, Mr. Bryant's widow, and the couple's children.

"I publicly tore you down by coming at you in a derogatory manner based off of emotions of me being angry at questions that you asked," he said in the video.

"I should have handled it way different than that," he continued. "I was raised way better than that, so I would like to apologize to you publicly for the language that I used and calling you out of your name and just being disrespectful. I didn't mean for it to be like that. I was just expressing myself for a friend that wasn't here to defend himself."

"I apologize," Snoop Dogg said.

Ms. King said in a statement on Thursday night that she could see both sides of the sensitive issue about Mr. Bryant's legacy.

"I accept the apology and understand the raw emotions caused by this tragic loss," she said. "I'm deeply sorry that questions I asked added to that pain. That was never my intention."

Ms. King said she perhaps could have handled the situation differently.

"As a journalist, it is sometimes challenging to balance doing my job with the emotions and feelings during difficult times," she said. "I don't always get it perfect, but I'm constantly striving to do it with compassion and integrity."

Last week, Ms. King criticized CBS for how it had promoted the five-and-a-half-minute interview by using a 94-second video clip in which Ms. King asked Ms. Leslie about a woman's 2003 sexual assault accusation. The criminal case was dropped and Mr. Bryant reached a private settlement with his accuser, but the subject has become a point of contention since his death.

CBS News later said it had mishandled the promotion.

"Gayle conducted a thoughtful, wide-ranging interview with Lisa Leslie about the legacy of Kobe Bryant," a network spokeswoman said. "An excerpt was posted that did not reflect the nature and tone of the full interview. We are addressing the internal process that led to this, and changes have already been made."

Susan Zirinsky, the president of CBS News, in a statement issued on Saturday, stood by Ms. King's reporting.

"We fully support Gayle King and her integrity as a journalist," Ms. Zirinsky said. "We find the threats against her or any journalist doing their job reprehensible. The interview with Lisa Leslie was comprehensive and thoughtful. We are a country where differences of opinion are welcome - but hateful and dangerous threats are completely unacceptable."

Neil Vigdor contributed reporting.

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Snoop Dogg Apologizes After Criticizing Gayle King Over Kobe Bryant Questions

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Snoop Dogg apologized on Wednesday to Gayle King, the lead anchor of "CBS This Morning," after criticizing her over a recent interview in which she brought up a 2003 rape allegation against Kobe Bryant. Last week, Ms. King was subjected to a social media backlash in which her critics pointed to an excerpt from her interview with Lisa Leslie, a former W.N.B.A.

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 Use of electronic devices allegedly  contribute to crash 

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 Use of electronic devices allegedly  contribute to crash 

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With no black box recorder aboard the helicopter that crashed last month in Calabasas, killing Kobe Bryant and eight others, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board are turning to the travelers' personal electronics for potential answers.

Investigators hope the passengers' cellphones and the pilot's iPad can help them better understand the chaotic last moments of the flight before the chopper slammed into a Calabasas hillside in foggy conditions.

Experts have said the helicopter was flying low enough that the activities of the electronics were likely captured by cellphone towers.

Ara Zobayan, the pilot of the Sikorsky S-76B, made his last communication with air traffic control as he climbed to 2,300 feet heading toward Camarillo in heavy clouds on Jan. 26. Investigators are seeking to reconstruct what led him to suddenly bank left and descend rapidly just before the crash.

The NTSB is increasingly using personal electronics to help understand aviation disasters, and collecting the devices has become part of investigative protocol.

"We were looking for electronic devices, as we always do. We were able to recover an iPad and a cellphone," NTSB member Jennifer Homendy said shortly after the crash. In the days that followed, investigators recovered additional personal devices and determined that the iPad belonged to Zobayan.

It could be awhile, though, before they know whether there is recoverable data on the devices, NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said.

Investigators also will examine any potential communications from those devices during the flight from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, where the helicopter took off at 9:06 a.m. The group was heading to Bryant's Mamba Academy in Thousand Oaks for a basketball game.

When the chopper went down about 40 minutes later, everyone on board was killed: Bryant, the Lakers legend; his 13-year-old daughter Gianna; Mamba coach Christina Mauser; player Payton Chester and her mother, Sarah Chester; player Alyssa Altobelli and her parents, John and Keri Altobelli; and Zobayan. All died of blunt force trauma, according to coroner's reports.

The helicopter had neither a cockpit voice recorder nor a flight data recorder, better known as a black box, for the NTSB to analyze. Federal Aviation Administration regulations did not require the chopper to have such recorders.

But the pilot did have an app loaded on his iPad that allows a pilot to plan a flight and check on weather, terrain, position and potential hazards in real time from the cockpit. The ForeFlight app can provide in-flight alerts of changing conditions, and it monitors GPS, speed and other dynamics of the aircraft.

It's unclear whether Zobayan was using the iPad because of the level of destruction during the crash, the NTSB said.

Gary Lackey, a former FAA inspector who for years has inspected choppers at Island Express, the operator of the helicopter that went down, said it's not uncommon to see iPads with ForeFlight mounted for use by pilots. Veteran aviators say the devices can provide insight into a flight but also can prove to be a distraction.

Information from electronic devices gathered by NTSB investigators have previously helped investigators better understand why aircraft crashed. Cellphone records were crucial in determining the cause of a fatal crash of a Bell helicopter in New Mexico in September 2017, the agency said.

The helicopter was flying over open ranch land when it went down. The NTSB determined there was no mechanical failure or malfunction, but the pilot's cellphone, which was recovered and reviewed, showed he had called a car rental agency during the flight.

When interviewed, the car rental clerk said she could tell the pilot was in a helicopter and that he seemed "busy or distracted." They were talking about a future rental when the phone disconnected mid-sentence, she said.

"Based on available information, the pilot was likely using his cellphone during the low-altitude flight and became distracted, which resulted in the controlled flight into terrain," the NTSB determined last year.

Similarly, the likely cause of the fatal crash of a single-engine Cessna airplane near Watkins, Colo., in May 2014 was revealed by a GoPro camera recovered from the wreckage. While the crash itself was not captured, the video revealed the pilot and various passengers had been taking selfies with their phones during a night flight, sometimes using a flash.

The NTSB concluded that the pilot probably became disoriented and "it is likely that the cellphone use during the accident flight distracted the pilot and contributed to the development of spatial disorientation and subsequent lack of control."

In addition to personal electronics, investigators also are likely trying to extract data from the helicopter's flight management system.

Doug Solbrekken, a veteran pilot of Sikorsky helicopters with two decades flying as well as training pilots, said he suspects the system won't yield much more than what officials already know from local radar.

"There is still a slim chance that a passenger's mobile phone or iPad could have been recording at the time of the crash," he said. "Some pilots also use GoPro-type cameras suction-cupped to the windows, either pointing outside or back into the cockpit or cabin during flight."

The FAA in 2014 banned airline pilots from using personal electronic devices, citing them as a distraction.

But general aviation pilots are allowed to use devices such as tablets with programs like ForeFlight. With pilots who are approved to fly passengers and cargo, the FAA can authorize operators to use electronic devices that can assist pilots.

The U.S. Department of Transportation in 2014 examined the safety of electronic flight devices and personal electronics used in the cockpit. Pilots complained of trouble scrolling and zooming with sometimes incorrect data and said the devices can be a distraction and sometimes lead to misinterpreted or erroneous aircraft performance parameters.

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Phones, electronic devices of those on Kobe Bryant helicopter could hold clues to crash

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With no black box recorder aboard the helicopter that crashed last month in Calabasas, killing Kobe Bryant and eight others, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board are turning to the travelers' personal electronics for potential answers.

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Kobe Bryant and the identification of the victims

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Investigators are still working on identifying the victims.

The remains of all of the victims who were aboard the ill-fated helicopter that went down Sunday, killing Kobe Bryant and eight others, have been recovered from the crash site in Calabasas, California, according to officials.

Three of the bodies were recovered from the helicopter wreckage Sunday afternoon and the remaining victims were located and removed from the crash site on Monday, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner announced.

Investigators are still working on identifying all of the victims, according to the coroner's office.

Bryant, 41, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others were on the Sikorsky S-76B aircraft when it left Orange County Sunday and crashed on a steep hillside in Calabasas just before 10 a.m.

The L.A. coroner officially identified four of those killed in the crash Tuesday, including Bryant, as well as pilot Ara Zobayan and passengers John Altobelli and Sarah Chester.

The chopper was headed to a game at Bryant's Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, along with others connected to the basketball program. All of the passengers are believed to have died instantly when the helicopter slammed into the mountains northwest of Los Angeles.

"It was a pretty devastating accident scene," National Transportation Safety Board member Jennifer Homendy said at a press conference Monday evening.

It is unclear what caused the crash. A federal investigation into why pilot Ara Zobayan took flight despite the foggy weather is underway.

In a National Transportation Safety briefing Tuesday afternoon, an official said the helicopter was only about "20 to 30 feet" from avoiding the mountain where it crashed.

The NTSB said the helicopter descended at a very high rate of speed, but were unable to say yet whether the dive was recoverable. Officials said an iPad and cellphone were recovered from the site.

Homendy said the NTSB held a briefing Tuesday afternoon with family members of those killed in the accident, but would not discuss who was on the call or any details out of respect for the families.

ABC News' Alex Stone contributed to this report.

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Bodies of all 9 victims recovered from helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, coroner says

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Investigators are still working on identifying the victims. The remains of all of the victims who were aboard the ill-fated helicopter that went down Sunday, killing Kobe Bryant and eight others, have been recovered from the crash site in Calabasas, California, according to officials.