March 02, 2005

• Why, because she wanted to avoid the high drama of having even more of her personal life revealed to the entire country? Or because she'd -- gasp! -- had sex with someone before she claimed she was raped? With the logic being used by the defense here, if I slept with my boyfriend and then got up to run an errand and was attacked or somesuch, they'd just say "enh, must be a fuckin' slut."
• ack, hit post too soon. And the whole thing is, so what if she was a slut? So what if she had sex with dozens of other men in only the week before? Does that make it so another man can ignore her if she says "no"?
• A koala bear?!!! Everybody knows a ring-tailed lemur is the animal to get when celebrating.
• So, anyone who is raped must remain a "victim" forever, and also keep up a sainted demeanor. Kobe's paying her because he thinks that a civil jury is likely to find him 51% guilty, as opposed to beyond a reasonable doubt (which seems to exist). What she does with the money is her business, even if she does something incredibly stupid with it.
• This woman's behavior doesn't say "victim" to me. It's good to know that the merits of a woman's case for sexual assault can be judged by her behavior in the months and years afterwards. What is the correct behavior for demonstrating that you've been raped? I'm curious. /no opinion on Kobe or this case, but inclined to take anything from the NY Daily News with a shakerful of salt
• If by "bothered" was a typo for "bored", then yes, I am bothered by this.
• c'mon, "A boob job and a Koala bear"?
• And? So, what does "say 'victim'" to you? And when is the statute of limitations for this? And is there a printed copy of the Bobsled Code for Victims available, so that future victims may properly live up to your expectations?
• Anyone read any good books lately?
• Sans sarcasm: Just because you have bad money-management skills or poor taste doesn't prove guilt. Even being, well, not the brightest crayon in the box doesn't prove guilt. Unless you're on trial for having bad money-management skills, having poor taste, or being dim. And this chick isn't on trial at all, let alone for any of those things.
• She should give the Koala a boob job.
• I was on her side (insofar as I cared, which was and is very little), until I read about her intentions to get a koala bear. It really gets to me that some people will go out and buy an exotic animal just because they can. Why not a fancy car, or a vintage pool table instead? She doesn't want an animal, she wants an expensive, unique accessory. Bitch.
• Monkeyfilter: just because i'm the brightest crayon in the box doesn't mean i'm guilty.
• Bobsled -- I would find your defense of your position more compelling if you hadn't stolen it, part and parcel, from Rob Corddry. I mean, COME ON!
• Which one bothers you, Bobsled, the boob job or the Koala bear?
• Koalas and boob jobs aside, it's not like there was a trial and Kobe was acquitted because he obviously didn't do it- the case never WENT to trial. It never would've got past the preliminary hearing stage if Colorado didnt have a ridiciulously low standard.... What bothers me is that someone is presumed guilty when the case against him was so weak that the prosecution dropped the charges. Times have changed, folks. Nowadays when a white woman points at an innocent black man and screams "rape!" he doesnt get hung (unless he's poor)
• Drjimmy- I assume that he's at least 51% guilty, otherwise he would never have agreed to a settlement. Beyond a reasonable doubt? Probably not.
• My biggest problem with the case here is that, based on my limited knowledge of the facts of the case, was that the allegation was simply unproveable. Whether in fact Kobe did or did not rape this woman can only be known by two people: Kobe and the woman. The reason for this is that, supposedly after the rape but BEFORE she reported the incident, she had sex with her boyfriend, thereby effectively contaminating the evidence of the crime. A similar situation may be the following: a man is walking down the street, minding his own business and is accosted by a belligerent man who beats him up. Following the fight, rather than going to the police and reporting the crime, this man goes over to a friend's house and participates in some backyard wrestling and boxing matches. THEN he goes to the police and expects them to be able to tell which, if ANY, injuries he may have sustained from the involuntary assault or the voluntary pugilistics. I'm well aware that rape can be incredibly traumatic physically and emotionally, but it is imperative to remain level-headed enough after the incident to PRESERVE THE EVIDENCE, not contaminate it by voluntarily participating in the exact same physical behavior before reporting it. Otherwise, where is the case? Because she didn't retain enough clarity of mind to report the incident before contaminating the evidence, all I can see is a he said/she said case, and unless there is other persuasive evidence that was not contaminated and put into serious question, that probably doesn't rise to a level beyond reasonable doubt.
• chimaera, even without the post-Kobe sex, it was a he said/she said situation. He admits to having sex with the woman, but he claims it was consentual. She says it wasn't. With no other witnesses or obvious signs of struggle (distinguishable from signs of struggle-free sex) there's not much to convict with. The civil case would have been a coin flip: which party does the jury believe? After the circus that was the criminal trial, it's understandable for Kobe to settle just to get it over with. The fact that he paid her is not necessarily a sign of guilt.
• aaronetc - I had to do a google search to find out who Rob Corddry is. I do watch The Daily Show, but I must have missed the one where he covered the Kobe settlement. I agree with chimaera in this one. It is a he said/she said situation. It just seems rather opportunistic to me.
• StoryBored: well, I just finished the Da Vinci Code, but I wouldn't say it was a good book at all. Appalling writing, and not a very good whodunnit either. Disappointing. (Categorically refusing to get into this discussion lest I end up ripping someone's *coughBobsledcough* head off. )
• rocket, I mostly agree that it was a he said/she said issue regardless, but physical evidence can provide very helpful indicators, particularly in the presence of injury, and especially if an examination indicates that the injury is consistent with unconsensual sex, and there is no indication of previous injury (which would indicate a tendency or habit toward more "rough" sex). This sort of evidence can greatly assist a criminal trial, and it was contaminated by her subsequent actions.
• livii, You'd want to rip my head off? I'm not trying to take sides here, it just struck me as an odd reaction. I mean no offense to anyone here...
• She's going to be disappointed - koala bears aren't cuddly, and can be nasty and violent. I read that in World Magasine when I was a kid. I did a school project on koalas when we were studying Australia. But I liked Ayres Rock better.
• And they tick when they're upset, like bombs!
• Fantastic reaction Livii ... Here we are discussing an alleged act of violence betweeen two adults ... someone takes a p.o.v. you disagree with and so you threaten them with violence. Brilliant response, especially from a lawyer ... hurrah! No. This does bother me. a lot. One of these people is guilty; either Kobe Bryant is guilty of rape or the woman is guilty of making false accusations. There's no real way of proving beyond reasonable doubt which one it is. Yet several people in this thread have posted with the assumption that because she has cried 'rape' she must be a victim - not so - the possibility exists that she is a gold-digger. As does the possibility that she is insane. True neither of these possiblities is proved by the way she chooses to spend her cash or by her choice of pets, but neither does her accusation of rape prove that she was raped. If she is lying - then it seems to me that Kobe Bryant is the victim - he has had his reputation tarnished worldwide. The only thing I know about Kobe Bryant is that someone has accused him of raping them. In the unlikely event that I met him I would think 'Oh, you're the guy who raped that woman.' not 'you're the fantastic basketball player.' Kobe Bryant is not subject to the normal rules of justice which are that one is innocent until proved guilty. It could be argued that the woman is playing the system (moving the case to California for instance) to get as much cash out of the incident as possible. It could be argued that he's only paying her off because he's thoroughly sick of the whole situation.
• What bothers me is that so much attention is being paid toward this particular case because it involves a basketball player. He wants to settle to make the case go away; and she wants the money so she can transform herself into another Anna Nicole Smith. They're both text-book examples of the media's need to look under rocks in order to create stories to sell advertising; and of the willingness of moronic Americans to watch, slack-jawed and drooling, while they do so.
• Slack-jawed and drooling Americans
• So glad that as a lawyer I don't get to have reactions to anything anymore, dickdotcom. Great job looking at my profile page too. This isn't just "disagreeing with a p.o.v." It's being completely disgusted by comments such as "that behaviour doesn't say "victim" to me." How should a victim look? What should a victim do? Should victims all be dressed in lace and go straight home after school and never, ever think about sex? I acknowledge that this particular case, more broadly, does have implications around guilt and innocence, deciding who's right in rape cases, etc. But that *wasn't* the original topic and frankly I'm not interested in that topic at all. My comments were specifically directed at someone who would post an opinionated, GYOFB-type post to the front page where the fact that a woman is not the brightest crayon in the box implies that she's a gold-digging whore who cried rape unnecessarily. And yeah, that fucking well does piss me off. It's a bad, bad post, and discussing the case inside doesn't redeem it. Also, I'd like to suggest that you look into the definition of metaphors, and seriously ask yourself if I was actually advocating violence with my comment, and not perhaps meaning something more along the lines of telling off the poster, which, great, I've just done, and I said I wouldn't do. Well, there you go.
• livii- Of course you are correct. Opinions don't belong here on this site. Unless they are yours. I had no opinion about this case until I read how she was planning on using her settlement money. Maybe there is some merit to Kobe's side of the argument. Since he settled he must be guilty, right?
• Livii ... might I politely suggest that you calm down a little and think a little harder about what you post. Your reaction to my comments is, dare I say it, a little OTT. I was using a little light humour to illustrate a dichotomy in your posting and hey! you rip my head off at the ankles. Hurrah! Clearly as a lawyer you've abandoned objectivity as well as reactions? I agree with you that Bobsled's posting could have been worded a little bit more carefully and, given a particular prejudice, could be interpreted in the way you have reacted. I have interpreted his (and I know he's a he cos I looked at his profile page to get a little bit more information about who he is - the same reason i looked at yours) posting in an entirely different way - that what he was intending to provoke was a discussion of who is the victim and who isn't. Your sexist prejudices are revealed in your latest posting when the clear implication of what you say is that the woman is automatically the victim ... not so ... objectivity says that in this case it is almost impossible to define who the victim is. It may be that Kobe Bryant is a violent rapist and the woman is the victim. It may be that the woman is a liar and a gold-digger (unlike you I choose not to categorise her as a whore as I don't know anything about her) and Kobe Bryant is the victim. As a journalist who has spent his career using words very carefully to ensure that my meaning is clear I do not need, and will not take a lecture about the definition of metaphors from a lwayer who is professionally dedicated to using language to obsfucate meaning. Your posting clearly defined violence. I cannot see how it might be interpreted differently. I also don't see that it is up to you to define what makes a good post and what doesn't, or what redeems it and what doesn't. This has come dangerously close to banana-flinging. Lets not shall we?
• I tried to read the DaVinci code but i couldn't get past the first chapter. The albino made me laugh and i dropped the book on my foot.
• Your post could've been clearer, Bobsled. I'm still not sure why you posted this at all, but at any rate, being less vague may have helped the situation. If you just wanted to advance your opinion, the-Site-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named has a phrase for that - but you may already know how that goes. 2c, adjust for inflation and current exchange rates as necessary.
• Nobody knows what happened, and that may include both participants, as we do not know their states of mind during the incident. They may both be right. He may have thought it was consensual; she may have felt intimidated by his celebrity and not given clear signals that she did not want to have sex. Certainly none of us has any information that would inform anything but conjecture. You know why celebrities see pros? To avoid two things; rape charges and paternity suits. It's a more upfront situation altogether; he gives me money, I give him sex, everybody's happy and everybody goes home to their lives. My opinion on this whole case? Kobe should have gone to a pro, first scanned the room for video equipment, then paid up and had a good time.
• I was using a little light humour dickdotcom, using a little humor when dealing with this topic is a very, very dangerous thing. Rape, or was-it-rape-or-not discussions are too touchy for that, and if you're going to try to joke about it, or even just in the vicinity of it, brace yourself for a sharp rebuke. full disclosure: I worked as a rape crisis counselor during my college years. I have heard stories that would curl your hair, and I know that the percentage of women who falsely cry rape is much lower than you would expect. Rape prosecutions are incredibly difficult to pursue. The reality is that we don't know what happened in that hotel room. We can speculate all we want to, but at the end of the day, the fact that Kobe Bryant has chosen to settle means that his accuser will get to do whatever she fucking pleases with that money, because it is now hers. This thread is a bad combination of newsfiltery post presented with insensitive (bordering on the T-word) editorializing. on preview, Moneyjane is exactly right.
• Regardless of your opinions of the two people involved, this case was a circus from the get-go. The prosecutors were bumblers, and a judicial employee (no less) inadvertently e-mailed confidential material to some news outlets. The accuser's name and picture were splattered across the tabloids, and reporters dug up all kinds of salacious dirt on this girl. As I recall, even the integrity of the jury selection process was compromised. The judge essentially lost control of the whole clusterfuck. There was no chance for a fair trial here (for either defendant or accuser), and I was relieved when it went away. And of course, Kobe's life has been turned upside down; who knows if he can recover personally and professionally? I won't begin to speculate about what happened that night. But I do think that throughout this whole debacle, the nice lady with the scales and the blindfold was brutally raped and left to bleed.
• Isn't the point, though, that in a situation where absolute guilt cannot be proven - that is, guilt beyond a reasonable doubt - saying "these are not, in my opinion, the actions of a victim", and therefore by implication "therefore her comments are enough, in the absence of other conclusive evidence, to convince me that she is lying and Kobe Bryant is innocent" depends on, as has been said, the idea that certain things disqualify one from being in effect rapable - such as having sex with more than one person in a single night, consensually or no, or planning to buy a koala bear with any winnings (is it possible that she might have been joking, by the way? Koala bears, being permanently stoned and massively flatulent, are hardly the best pet choice)? That, I think, is the difficulty perceived in Bobsled's original post, and as such Ambrosia seems to me to be rather on the money. On The Da Vinci Code: My careers advisor suggested to me that, being unnaturally pale and extremely tall, I might want to avoid working as an assassin, on account of being very easy to spot in a crowd. It's not a profession that really serves giant albinos well. I posted an enormous rant about the DVC on my blog, but linking would probably be tacky.Is there some sort of MoFi support group?
• Y'know, I actually quite enjoyed the Da Vinci code, right up until the unravelled and stupendously mediocre ending. The clues were interesting and the solutions meted out just frequently enough to encourage me to read just one. more. chapter. before I went to sleep. Of course, I read this on the train in Scotland last year, so my enjoyment of the trip could have colored my impression.
• I think that on some level, when it comes to "should he have to pay money to this woman or not" the question of if it was rape or not is somewhat irrelevant. As others have pointed out we cannot know what happened, but we do know that his penis went in her vagina. We also know that he is married. Sorry, but in my book if you are married and someone besides your wife is touching your penis, then you deserve whatever karma comes your way. Call me crazy but if you are married, don't think you can get naked with someone else without it coming back to bite you. Maybe all the crap he is going through will make some other celebrity stop and think, "Maybe I should go to my room alone tonight." So if we stop fixating on if the woman was raped or if it was concentuaul, and look at the fact that either way Kobe made a morally dubious choice, then if he ends up having to pay a bunch of money to someone he did have consentual sex with, it doesn't really matter that much unless you plan on getting rich and cheating on your spouse.
• I'm with Money on this one. He should know better than to have been alone in a hotel room with an airhead like that. However, the ego and sense of entitlement of some athletes and other "stars" can sometimes defy belief.
• I agree with jccalhoun and moneyjane on this one. If you're a person in the spotlight, don't sleep around, or don't be surprised at the fallout. If you do sleep around, do it with someone who knows the score (pun not intended!). Whether he raped her or not, he's not the shiny happy guy his p.r. agents were presenting him as.
• And the moral, children, is that the world would be a much better place, if only we all slept with prostitutes. Finally, someone recognizes the genius of my philosophy!
• Feels like this is over, but I really want to say a few more things to defend myself. Stupid, I know. Apologies to all in advance. One, Bobsled, opinions are certainly welcome on Monkeyfilter but FPPs that are just opinions and a bit of newsfilter are not. Your post editorialized and that's not good. And dickdotcom, of course it's not up to me alone to decide what's a good post, but as a member of this site I do have a voice in helping to decide those standards. And so I voiced my opinion on the matter. Two, I strongly object to being called a sexist. In no way did I suggest women are automatically the victim - instead I posited the opinion that there is no one defined characteristic that makes one a "victim" and the activities the woman in this case took part in don't preclude her from being one nonetheless. I would apply this equally to men, btw, if that's what you mean by sexist, which I find oddly applied, but I have to object to anyway because it's really offensive. Btw, I never "categorized [the woman] as a whore" - if you think that's what I said, then you obviously did not read my post. Three, I'm also going to strongly object to your totally unnecesary dig at lawyers, which almost made me decide to write you off as the dreaded t-word, but I felt I still wanted to reply to your other comments. I love people who feel they have the measure of lawyers as a whole; how would you feel if I classified all journalists as ass-kissing lapdogs based on the sort of journalism I see in the States these days? Fun, huh? Four, if you still think I was actually suggesting that I desired to meet Bobsled and cause physical injury to his self then I must, politely, suggest that you have taken a complete leave of your senses and may want to look to see if you can extricate the top of your body from your posterior. Finally, there'd be no need for flinging if you hadn't decided to pile all over me in the first place, so let's not get all high and mighty, okay? To everyone else: I also agree with moneyjane, thank ambrosia for her comments on humour, think jccalhoun also has an interesting point, and I recognize the genius of mct's philosophy. ;)
• Oh, and tannhauser, I'd like to see the link to your rant about the DVC, I'm making a little project of seeing different people's reactions. And I do admit that it was a well-paced whodunnit until the end. The ending was totally unsatisfying. I was also just really frustrated with the quality of writing, which I found amateurish at best. My favourite part was when he described the four museums he was near in Paris. Thank you, but I wasn't reading a travel guide today, I didn't think!
• There are a lot of reasons to settle when you're not guilty: Kobe wanted to avoid an embarassing trial, which would a) pull him away from his work and b) air embarassing details of his sex life, costing him the few endorsements he has left. Insider speculation says he settled for far beyond the maxmium award allowed in Colorado. And (assuming it was consensual) the whole, "he was married, he deserves it" argument baffles me. Why?? Sure, its not that admirable, but that's between him and his wife. Who here is a personal friend of the Bryant family? For all we know, she cheated on him first. He should have to face the consequences when he goes home and faces his wife. He shouldnt have to pay $5 million to a third party. (Oh and by the way, this whole puritanical hysteria about people we dont know cheating on their wives is the reason Al Gore isnt in his 2nd term right now.)
• people we dont know cheating on their wives I'd say the majority of my business comes from the Baby and the Bathwater scenario. Guy's been married 23 years to his highschool/university sweetie, the kids are now in university, and the wife's interest in sex has dropped, often related to menopause. He DOES NOT want a divorce. He loves his wife very much. But the lack of sexuality in his life is driving him bananas, as understanding as he may be. That's where I come in - not cheating in the emotional sense, as he reserves his emotional bond for the woman he loves; but yet providing what is lacking in a way that doesn't lead to divorce court. We don't know a thing about what transpired between Kobe and his wife; some of the women know the husband has sex on the side and have made their peace with it, and so it's their damn business, not anyone else's. In a way it's almost demeaning to the wife, assuming she's a heartbroken victim; how does anyone know she's not, with Kobes'a knowledge, doing the gardener? People's private lives are much more complicated than we know, which is why they should stay private, rather than fodder for mindless speculation.
• well how i see it is that kobe's wife got a big diamond ring as an i'm sorry gift and this woman is suing for big bucks. something just isn't right here. as someone mentioned, it's a he said, she said kinda thing. but he's rich, so he'll pay up to both women and hopefully keep his zipper up next time.
• js is right -- koalas (which regularly visit my garden) are not cuddly at all. I have been woken up more than once by their snoring, which is astonishingly loud for an animal of that size. And Ayers Rock has been known as "Uluru" since 1985.
• As I understand it, the case was not dismissed because of any lack of evidence; it was dismissed because the victim decided that she was not going to testify. Without the victim's testimony in a he said/she said, the state has no case. And rape cases where the rapist alleges consent are absolute nightmares for the state. If the people already know each other, then the state is really screwed. If the accused is seen as desirable to the victim (as in this case), then the the state has an uphill battle. If the accused is seen as being beneath the victim socially or looks-wise, then the state has a nice case. But what is the state to do in these he said/she said cases? It would seem that every he said/she said case with no witnesses where consent is alleged would at least rise to a reasonable doubt. How in the world can you believe one person over another beyond a reasonable doubt? I imagine that the state would have lost, but they would have gone on if she would have testified. As for Bryant settling, he is just avoiding the embarrassment and hassle. Michael Jackson did it. Marv Albert did it in his criminal case (he could have been found guilty on a consent basis, but he did not want public testimony about crossdressing during sex). "Sorry, but in my book if you are married and someone besides your wife is touching your penis, then you deserve whatever karma comes your way." -- jccalhoun I must deserve some pretty bad damn karma. Someone's hand is on my penis right now, and it is not my wife's. Of course, that makes the one-handed typing very difficult.
• psst! It was jb, not js. I know we look alike. :) Sorry about the Uluru thing - I knew they had changed the name back to the Aborigine name (because it is a sacred place), but they hadn't yet in Canada in 1988. I didn't know the current name.
• Sorry!
• I must deserve some pretty bad damn karma. Someone's hand is on my penis right now, and it is not my wife's. Of course, that makes the one-handed typing very difficult. *snorts quietly*
• Livii ... I'd never make a Labour party press officer, I was going to write a detailed rebuttal of your rather hilarious, baffling and completely OTT last post. But I really can't be bothered. Ambrosia - yes, point taken ... as ever Moneyjane has been a voice of sanity
• Wowzer. We begin with the idea that behaving in an indecorous fashion makes it more likely that one is dissimulating in one's accusations of rape. We go on to the idea that if one commits adultery one somehow deserves to have to settle out of court over accusations of rape. America is a fascinating country sometimes... Can we agree that: i) Not a body here was in the hotel room 2) Not a body here is currently married to Kobe Bryant 3) Therefore, not a body here can state with absolute confidence what happened in the hotel room or what happens in Kobe Bryant's marriage 4) Further, how people behave now does not on anything more than a quantum level change what has already happened in the hotel room or Kobe Bryant's marriage? As such, maybe the face-value is as good as any - Bryant thought it was no-strings, consensual fun, she felt browbeaten or intimidated, he has acknowledged that they have different recollections of a situation and different emotional reactions to it, and therefore is in effect compensating her for her hurt feelings and his lack of sensitivty, without having to contest what would indeed be a time-consuming and reputation-damaging trial.
• The following was written to a fellow MoFite, qwghlm, when I was just a few chapters into The Da Vinci Code: Oh sweet Lord, I just started trying to read 'The Da Vinci Code'. Oh goodness me. Oh massive fornicating God. Phrases such as "stupendously bad" or "without doubt, is the worst book I read this year (if not this decade)", as mentioned in your Digital Fortress post... they really don't do it justice. It's astonishing. Genuinely, I could write better than that when I was ten. And the plot! The research! Jesus Christ! I believe somebody once said that, in all honesty, he should credit Google as a co-author; that's exactly what it reads like. Ugh. Oh, and neither he nor his editor knows the correct plural of "millenium". From that point, it all went downhill. I'm with Language Log on this - he's the worst prose stylist I've ever read. And his grasp of subjects such as religious history, iconography, and even the behaviour and characteristics of Europeans is so precisely wrong that one feels it can only be intentional. I will happily elaborate on my feelings towards the book, should anybody wish to hear a detailed list of every single thing that's wrong with it. I believe such a list would also serve as a workable collection of every mistake it's possible to make whilst writing - there can be very few horrors that Dan Brown hasn't inflicted upon his unfortunate readers.
• Rant on the Da Vinci Code. Starts on the third paragraph down.
• list of Dan Brown mistakes
• I have not read the book, but I just went to dickdotcom's link. I guess I don't understand what the deal is here. The man wrote a work of fiction. It is in the fiction section. He should use historical fact to help his story and he should bend historical fact when that will help. What is possibly the problem? Criticisms that make sense include poor writing, poor story, poor characters, etc. But not being accurate? Is that the standard for a work of fiction?
• If inaccuracies interfere with one's experience of the text, I would say so. Also, if one sells books on the claim that they are exhaustively researched, and that claim is a dishonest one. The factual errors in Brown's books are admittedly by no means as irritating as his crashingly awful dialogue, penny-dreadful plotting, insultingly simple puzzles and soul-crushing expository interludes, but they are nonetheless prevalent enough to cause frequent breaks for nausea throughout the book. For example, if your finale depends on a man falling from a height from which one can open and deploy a parachute, with a sheet of tarpaulin to arrest his fall, and surviving through landing in the Tiber (which is I think shallower as it runs through Rome than an Olympic diving pool) you might just as well have your protagonist grow wings and escape that way. It's "in a single bound" writing.
• Dan Brown makes a really big thing of the central facts in TDVC being absolutely 100% true - notably the existence of the Prieuré de Sion. Not only has the Priory (in this form) been widely acknowledged as a hoax for about two decades, but Brown doesn't even portray the hoax accurately. Most of the central portion of the book reads like it was composed by a random cut-and-paste algorithm using Holy Blood, Holy Grail and some new-age feminist mystical Earth Goddess text as the sources. But yes, it's the astonishingly bad writing that is the real problem (tannhauser, your link made me laugh coke in the general direction of my keyboard...) The inaccuracy comes in there, as well - he's so desperate to cram his "research" into the text, it frequently reads like an amnesiac tour guide with ADHD. Nothing in it ever rings true.
• I recently read "Congo" by Michael Crichton, which was also so crammed with unverified facts about gorillas, Africa and blue diamonds that I can't recall the actual plotline. While it's nice to read a book that does indeed teach you cool trivia for your next boardgame evening, it's probably better to focus on actual content than copy-paste data to hide the many gaping plotholes.
• I like the idea of someone intentionally deceiving the reader into thinking that many of the "facts" in his work of fiction are true. People think things are more interesting if they are true or "based on a true story." Making up facts to support the narrative structure makes for an interested, devoted fan base. I mean, look how well it worked for the Bible.
• With the logic being used by the defense here, if I slept with my boyfriend and then got up to run an errand and was attacked or somesuch, they'd just say "enh, must be a fuckin' slut." Your analogy is way off. Lets remember; she was drinking on the job and escorted Kobe to his room. Why I point these out? As a front desk hotel employees, especially a resort like this, don't take guests to their asighned rooms as this is the duty of another employee, fyi. Also works of the public having alcohol on their breath will always be bad etiquette to their guests and surprised she was not fired for it.
• So hold on... if she's a good hotelier, he's guilty, if she's a bad hotelier, he's innocent? Somebody stop Basil Fawlty before he kills again.