The FBI recently unsealed a 17-page report on a murder-for-hire scheme that targeted the Colorado woman who in 2003 accused NBA superstar Kobe Bryant of sexual assault.
The report, which is heavily redacted, outlines the case against Patrick Graber, a Swiss bodybuilder who offered to kill Bryant’s accuser, a Colorado resident, for $3 million. The FBI posted the report on Sept. 1 to its vault website, an archive for cases with a large public interest.
Graber’s name is redacted from the report, but he was sentenced in 2004 to three years in prison for the scheme.
According to the FBI report, Graber mailed an offer to Bryant via Federal Express that included “inferences that he could make Bryant’s problem with respect to the sexual assault case go away for a fee.”
Bryant’s security team and his attorney took the letter to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The sheriff’s department conducted a controlled meeting with the suspect, who offered to “influence the victim” in the trial and, if that didn’t work, to “go all the way to remove the witness,” the report said.