It was 2003 when Kobe Bryant was embroiled in a sexual assault case filed in Denver. He received an unusual offer from an interested party.
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Kobe’s death last year brought out an outpouring of emotion from basketball fans from across the globe. He was by no means a perfect man or a perfect player, but he always strove to better himself.
It was this drive of his that continues to endear and fascinate new fans of the sport even today. However, his flaws and mistakes as one of the league’s greatest superstars are also in public memory.
Kobe was charged with sexual assault after a Denver-based woman lodged a complaint against him in June 2003. The legal proceedings for this case went on throughout the 2003-04 season. Bryant would often be hopping off flights from court appearances to play in the regular season.
The case was eventually settled out of court. Bryant also released a highly controversial, debated statement that read quite as an insincere apology. This rape trial was also raised by some of his detractors right in the wake of his death in January 2020 last year.
A Swiss immigrant approached Kobe Bryant with a $3 million bounty proposal
FBI released an investigative report on this case last week. According to their records, a man boasted to undercover officers that he could make the rape trial ‘go away’ by killing the accuser for $3 million.
These officers then identified this assailant as Patrick Graber, a Swiss immigrant. They then managed to nab him as he was trying to collect the first $1 million payment in the murder-for-hire plot.
Graber was later absolved of most of his charges related to the murder. He pleaded no contest to grand theft in 2004 after prosecutors dropped several charges, including solicitation to commit murder. He was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to be deported following his release.
