By Brad Locke
August 6, 2004

(AgapePress) - If you think about it too much, it's scary. No, it's more than that. It's terrifying. It's cover-your-eyes-and-pray-this-can't-be-true terrifying.

The latest revelation in the Kobe Bryant saga, as first reported by Sports Illustrated in its Aug. 9 issue (it hit newsstands Wednesday), has it that a waitress in Florida was fondled by Bryant at a party in November 2002, about seven months before he allegedly committed the rape he's on trial for in Colorado. If this new allegation has any merit, it changes everything.

Bryant's team of top-notch attorneys had been racking up victory after victory this summer and seemed to have a handle on things. Heck, the victim was, and still is, thinking about dropping out of the case altogether. If nothing else, this latest news will halt the defense's momentum, though it isn't necessarily a tide-turner.

How this affects the outcome of the impending trial, which begins Aug. 27, cannot be predicted. Besides, what horrifies for the moment is the possibility that there is a pattern of behavior in Bryant's past that suggests this wasn't an isolated incident. Certainly I'm not so naïve as to believe he suddenly decided to be a rapist one day. People usually build up to that. But if these allegations turn out to be true, then judging by the details of the accounts, it will be time to change our perception of who Kobe Bryant is and what motivated him.

So far, he's been painted as a lone ranger with few social skills. We know he hid under his headphones off the court, though whether it was out of shyness or snobbery is up for debate. This, it is said, contributed to his awkward way of dealing with women (though it didn't seem to keep his wife, Vanessa, away from the altar). Judging from what supposedly happened in Florida, however, it has become clear -- to me at least -- that there is something much darker at work in Bryant's being.

Bryant reportedly touched the waitress in an inappropriate manner, then laughed at her when she fled. In the Colorado incident, he is accused of raping not only the victim's body, but basically her dignity as well (I'll spare the details if you haven't read them). This doesn't sound like a guy who can't delicately seduce a woman; this sounds like a serial sociopath who would make Mike Tyson look saintly.

Sociopaths and the like compose that tiny minority of criminals that is capable of defying the numbers. According to statistics compiled from a 2002 survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, 66 percent of rape victims know their assailant; neither victim knew Bryant personally before the night of the events in question. About 60 percent of rapes occur in the victim's home or in the home of a friend, neighbor or relative; the incidents involving Bryant occurred in a resort and Shaquille O'Neal's house, respectively. Only 22 percent of rapists are married; Bryant is not only married, he has an infant daughter.

Bryant is not your typical American male, though. He's a millionaire athlete. He's a rarity, which means his background and psychological make-up are a universe apart from most people's. That is perhaps why he thinks he gets to set his own rules. He is his own statistical category.

I get the feeling this is only the beginning. I certainly want to give Bryant the benefit of the doubt until a verdict is handed down, but there is now the very real possibility that more women will step forward with accusations. His lawyers will call it piling on, while the prosecution will call it an emerging pattern of sexual misbehavior.

I call it simply frightening. Is Kobe Bryant a monster? The thought makes me want to cover my eyes and pray.