A night we'll never really know about

After more than 15 years in journalism, I still don't understand how this business operates sometimes. I don't get how some stories become national stories that warrant hourly updates from the major networks, while others barely make the tiny print in the back of the newspaper.

In Durham, N.C., for instance, the accounts of the rape accusations involving a 28-year-old African-American female stripper and three white Duke lacrosse players became one of the biggest news events in 2006 when the story broke in March.

We know the accused just as we know their accuser and the ambitious local prosecutor, Mike Nifong.

We've seen both sides on television repeatedly. We know their stories. We've seen that city and the university become divided as people take sides. We know that rape charges were dropped, but the kidnapping and sex charges remain.

Perhaps the alluring mix of athletes, alcohol, a stripper, alleged sex and violence, race and privilege has kept this story alive for so long.

Meanwhile, a similar story in the Northwest has gone largely ignored by comparison, even though it contains the same explosive elements.

This week in Portland, four Utah Jazz players accused of raping a Portland woman at a downtown hotel were cleared of any wrongdoing.

One could argue that the absence of evidence, perhaps proven by the prosecutors' decision not to pursue criminal charges, suggests that this is a non-story and it got the attention that it deserved, which is little to none.

But I'm not so sure.

Long before Kobe Bryant went to trial for rape, the media rushed to uncover any and everything about the 19-year-old Colorado woman who accused him of a sexual assault in July 2003.

In that case, the alleged victim became a media magnet. In Durham, the lacrosse players have been put under the media microscope.

But in Portland? Nothing.

If not for the Portland Tribune, which obtained a memo from the Multnomah County district attorney's office, the facts of the case probably would have never been revealed.

According to the newspaper, the memo states that the woman worked at a strip club, where she met players Deron Williams, Ronnie Brewer, Paul Milsap and Dee Brown on Oct. 23 while they were in town for an exhibition game against the Portland Trail Blazers.

They flirted in a taxi on their way to the RiverPlace Hotel, stopped at a convenience store to buy condoms, and according to Senior Deputy District Attorney Donald Rees, the cabdriver stated he heard the woman say she wanted to have sex with two men at the same time.

Hotel employees saw the woman and the four players enter the lobby at about 2:30 a.m. and about 40 minutes later, she emerged from an elevator naked, alone and screaming rape, the newspaper reported.

According to the memo, Rees wrote she appeared extremely intoxicated when police arrived and told investigators she believed the players had drugged her before three of them assaulted her and two forced her to have sex with them.

A hotel employee found the woman's clothes on the fourth floor, where the players had rooms. But police investigators discovered no evidence implicating them.

Police interviewed the players separately and each gave similar accounts.

According to the memo, Brown went to his room to play video games. Williams and Milsap were initially in the room with the woman, and Brewer left after she began crying and stated she had been raped three times before.

The newspaper reported that Brewer told police, "He decided not to have sexual intercourse with [her] because she was too drunk and acting strangely."

After a 2-½-month investigation, Rees sided with the players, partly because the accuser stopped cooperating with police and because "absent an admission from one of the suspects, it appears unlikely that identity will ever be established," he wrote in a memo.

"That fact alone bars prosecution of this case, because identity must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt."

Of course, we'll never know what happened at the RiverPlace Hotel. Everyone, it seems, is distancing themselves from that night.

"Our internal investigation closed a while ago and its results are exactly consistent with the results from the Portland police," Kevin O'Connor, senior vice president of Jazz basketball operations, told the Deseret News on Friday. "There are no charges, and we move on."

But where do we go from here?

The lessons of Bryant, Mike Price — fired by Alabama before he ever coached a game — the Minnesota Vikings' sex boat scandal and the Duke lacrosse players have yet to dissuade athletes from making similar mistakes.

And yet, despite their missteps early in the evening, I'd like to think that Williams and Milsap were thinking about the Duke lacrosse team when they walked out of that room.

I'm hoping Brown had Price or the Vikings' fallout in mind when he decided not to get involved.

And maybe Bryant's ill-fated actions influenced Brewer in some way.

We'll never know, and this sad, little story quietly goes away as if it never happened at all.

Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or pallen@seattletimes.com