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An attorney for the woman who accused Patrick Kane of sexual assault said that she will cooperate with the investigation into an alleged hoax that threw the case into chaos and briefly raised questions of evidence tampering.
In a letter released to the Tribune Saturday, Buffalo-based attorney Roland Cercone denied Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita's recent suggestions that the woman wouldn't answer questions about the purported hoax. Cercone said the insinuation – made during a news conference Friday – was untrue.
"For the record, no one has asked to speak to the complainant regarding the latest incident," Cercone wrote. "I suspect this is so because their investigation has already revealed that she had no knowledge of—or anything to do with—this entire fiasco. However, should the District Attorney wish to speak with my client, she is ready, willing, and able to cooperate, as she has always done throughout this investigation."
Sedita could not immediately be reached for comment.
The letter follows a bizarre week of events in the high-profile case, starting with an allegation that a bag that once contained the rape kit from the investigation had been anonymously left at the home of the woman's mother.
Two days later, Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita III held his own news conference to announce that the bag's appearance had been an "elaborate hoax" by the accuser's mother and that the evidence had not been compromised. The accuser's attorney, Thomas Eoannou, seemed to back those findings, as he quit the case late Thursday after making the explosive claim and said he no longer believed the mother's story.
Letter from Patrick Kane accuser's attorney
Cercone, a prominent personal injury attorney who has been involved with the case for weeks, called the situation "a mess" and said he had never seen anything like it.
"Not much surprises me after thirty years of practice, including years as the chief prosecutor in the sex offense unit of the Erie County District Attorney's office," he wrote. "However, the misrepresentations this case has generated have reached the point of indeed being a circus."
A Baptist deacon, Cercone lamented recent developments had drawn attention away from Pope Francis' visit to the United States. He closed his letter by asking the public to pray for, among others, the accuser, Kane, Kane's family and the pope.
Before a preseason game against the St. Louis Blues on Saturday, Kane declined to discuss the twists in the case over the past week. But he reiterated his position that he'll be cleared of any wrongdoing.
"Obviously I believe what I said and I think that's been reiterated many times by not only myself but my lawyer as well," the 26-year-old winger said. "But what's going to actually happen is just speculation. I don't know what comes next."
Patrick Kane case devolves into a legal circus
At his Friday news conference, Sedita said the bag was given to the accuser's mother when she accompanied her daughter to a local hospital to have a rape kit done on Aug. 2. She was the last known person to have the bag, he said.
The mother was given the bag for a shirt the daughter had left at home before going to the hospital. Police, however, opted to use their own evidence bag when they came to collect the item of clothing, Sedita said.
Sedita methodically walked reporters through a detailed timeline and surveillance video, showing the chain of custody of the rape kit. The kit was never placed in any bag and was always in a secure location, he said.
"The evidence in the case wasn't tampered with nor was it compromised," Sedita said.
Sedita said he does not anticipate criminal charges from the hoax because it is not illegal to lie to a private lawyer, as he alleges the accuser's mother did in this case. The mother, he said, never reported to police or prosecutors that the bag had been left at her home. She denies perpetrating a hoax.
The revelation that the bag was not in any way connected to the rape kit or to the Kane investigation, Sedita said, should not affect the continuing inquiry — unless prosecutors determine that the accuser participated in the hoax. That part of the inquiry was continuing.
The news conference marked the first time Sedita has publicly acknowledged the investigation into a 21-year-old western New York woman's claim that Kane raped her at his lakefront mansion last month. It also offered another signal that the case against Kane may be weakening, as Sedita would not commit to bringing the case before a grand jury. Prosecutors canceled a scheduled grand jury proceeding in the case earlier this month and had told Kane's lawyer that they intended to reschedule it.
Sedita — who traditionally brings cases before grand juries even when he doesn't intend to prosecute — suggested his office could also close the case administratively, meaning without a grand jury presentation and, as a consequence, without any criminal charges.
"The question in my mind isn't when this case goes to a grand jury ... it's if this case goes to a grand jury," he said.
In his letter, Cercone said the woman would continue to make herself available to investigators.
"Never has my client refused to speak or cooperate with the District Attorney's office when asked to do so," he wrote. "Any time the District Attorney has asked her to come to his office, she has cooperated fully. Now is no exception."
Copyright © 2015, Chicago Tribune
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