Kobe Bryant has repeatedly avoided receiving an official court summons filed by an Ohio woman who claims the superstar Los Angeles Laker had sex with her and deceitfully promised marriage, according to records filed in Orange County Superior Court.
A registered California process server, Albert Palomera, claims that he made seven attempts in December to personally serve Bryant mostly at the Lakers training facility, but was ordered away by team guards.
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In one case, a team guard told the Palomera, “Mr. Bryant does not wish
to receive any legal papers at this time,” according to a court
document.
The server claims he returned five days later and was
again ordered to leave by a guard, who “assumed I was attempting to
serve Mr. Bryant with divorce papers” from his wife, Vanessa.
That same day, Mrs. Bryant–a resident of Newport Coast, Orange County's most exclusive gated community–filed for divorce.
(Yesterday, the Weekly's Matt Coker wrote about a report that the couple might reconcile.)
In the Miller case, Bryant's slealth strategy apparently is working: Last month, Superior Court Judge Steven L. Perk ordered Miller to “give written notice” of the lawsuit to Bryant or face case dismissal at a scheduled June 24 hearing.
(Here's one fool-proof perch to serve Bryant: Borrow Hollywood actor Jack Nicholson's court-side Staples Center seat.)
In a telephone interview with the Weekly
just after she filed her lawsuit, a chatty Miller said that Bryant repeatedly visited her–and other Ohio women–for sex; and she wasn't happy that
one of the other ladies allegedly received a ring.
Miller also claimed that Bryant thought she was a prostitute.
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–R. Scott Moxley
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.