| LOS ANGELES (AFP) - US authorities have arrested a Swiss bodybuilder for allegedly offering to kill US basketball hero Kobe Bryant's rape accuser in return for a three million dollar fee, police said.
Patrick Graber, 31, who posed as a hitman for the Russian mob, was arrested after accepting an advance of one million dollars in phoney cash from police and federal agents in a massive sting operation in the Los Angeles area.
The bodybuilding coach, who told undercover officers his name was Yuri, wrote to Bryant last week offering to kill the 19-year-old woman who has accused the athlete of sexually assaulting her in Colorado in June.
"The letter said something to the effect that 'we can solve your problem' and gave a phone number" which Bryant's security officers called, said Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Lieutenant Jim Taylor.
Bryant's bodyguards then contacted police who took the threat as "credible and real" as Graber, who works in a Los Angeles gym, appeared to be familiar with personal details of the woman's life.
"He said he could make her not come to court, he could make her disappear, he could make her have a drug overdose -- he was specific in this manner," Taylor told reporters.
Graber allegedly agreed with undercover sheriff's officers and federal Bureau of Investigation agents to kill the victim for three million dollars -- a million up front and two million to be paid after her death.
"He was going to give us evidence that he had murdered her in the way of a photograph or some other evidence," Taylor said.
Agents arranged to hand over the first one million dollar payment in a parking lot on Thursday and arrested Graber when he accepted it.
"There was cash exchanged. We had a satchel full of prop money from a movie studio and we put real money on top of it and he picked the money up and started looking at it," Taylor said.
The startling plot is the latest twist in the highly publicized case linked to the sexual assault allegations against one of the world's best-known sportsmen.
The National Basketball Association icon Bryant was arrested in July and charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman employee at a luxury spa resort in the western state of Colorado on June 30.
The 25-year-old Los Angeles Lakers guard, who is a role model and hero to millions of basketball fans, faces up to life in jail if convicted on the felony charge which is equivalent to rape under Colorado law.
The married Bryant, who is free on 25,000 dollars bail, has strongly denied the allegations of rape but as conceded that he had sex with the woman.
Prosecutors, Bryant's accuser, police and even the judge in the
case have reported receiving menacing messages and even death threats from people apparently angered at the charges against Bryant.
A student was arrested in Iowa last month on charges of threatening to kill the young woman who is the athlete's alleged victim.
Bryant is due to appear in court in the town of Eagle, near where the alleged assault took place, on October 9 for a preliminary hearing aimed at evaluating whether there is enough evidence to go to trial. | |
