The woman accusing Kings coach Luke Walton of sexual assault in a 2017 incident has dropped her lawsuit against him, according to a report from TMZ Sports.
Former television sports reporter Kelli Tennant had claimed Walton forced himself on her in a Santa Monica hotel room. The suit stated she was “in shock and fear” at the advances and thought she was going to be raped.
Walton, who was an assistant with the Warriors at the time, denied her charges, saying she initiated the meeting and nothing sexual took place. Walton’s attorney, Mark Baute, called her “an opportunist” and vowed that Walton would fight the lawsuit.
The TMZ report states that it’s unclear if a settlement has been reached. Tennant filed new court documents this week in the L.A. County Superior Court asking the judge to dismiss her her suit with prejudice, which means she won’t be able to refile it.
The NBA conducted an independent investigation and announced in August that Walton had been cleared because there wasn’t enough evidence to support Tennant’s allegations. Tennant refused several times through her attorney to talk with investigators hired by the league.
Smells like a settlement to me, with her not being able to refile it, right?
Most definitely.
Dismissal with prejudice is a strong signal of settlement, yes. Otherwise she has no reason not to dismiss without prejudice.
if he really did something wouldnt you want to talk and tell them what happen. or was this not true and was her way to make luke look bad. who knows
who knows? if you can’t produce evidence that would satisfy the court then you probably don’t have a case, hence her lawyers wising up and asking the case to be dismissed with prejudice.
I think the lesson here is that you don’t go to someone’s hotel room if you don’t know them very well, and you don’t invite someone you don’t know to your hotel room either. Keeps everything and everyone nice and safe.
but they knew each other Jason, they had a working relationship.
Well they obviously didn’t know each other well enough.
Like Kobe’s 19-year old victim back in 2003?
Famous Bryant raped loudly; aquaintance Walton “only” tried for a bit.
Exactly, a married man in Walton’s position cannot put himself in these kind of situations. If it’s a working relationship, they’re are plenty of other places to do business other than a hotel room. The optics of a married man alone in a hotel room are bad enough, even if they were just working.
Wow! Imagine that! The NBA dropped this because there was no evidence. The NFL might want to follow suit in how the NBA handles these matters. Because in the NFL apparently they don’t need evidence to drop the hammer on their employees if someone just “claims“ something happened.