A lawyer released dozens of e-mails Tuesday that he says prove the Douglas County woman who accused Ben Roethlisberger of rape is lying, and demanded she drop a civil lawsuit.
David Cornwell said the e-mails from the 30-year-old Gardnerville woman after the alleged attack "directly refute the scurrilous allegations made in her complaint."
He demanded the woman "abandon her lawsuit and admit Roethlisberger did not rape her."
It is the Nevada Appeal's policy not to name alleged victims of sexual assault.
The woman claimed the attack took place during the July 2008 American Century Championship golf tournament at Edgewood Golf Course in South Lake Tahoe. She was employed at Harrah's Tahoe as a VIP casino host where Roethlisberger, the Pittsburgh Steelers' quarterback, was a guest.
The woman said in her lawsuit, filed a month ago in Washoe County, she never made a criminal complaint against Roethlisberger because casino officials pressured her into keeping quiet.
The two-time Super Bowl winner denied the allegations.
Cornwell is an Atlanta-based lawyer who represents sports figures.
He released e-mails Tuesday reportedly from the woman written two days after she claimed she was sexually assaulted. She wrote she was looking forward to having dinner with Roethlisberger and other celebrities attending the 2008 championship.
The woman sent the e-mails to someone she believed was a soldier in Iraq with whom she was carrying on an online romance. A co-worker, however, said the e-mails were actually being exchanged with the wife of a man the alleged victim had an affair with, in an effort to trick her.
Five months after she claimed Roethlisberger raped her, the woman told the fictitious boyfriend, "I would date Ben Roethlisberger" if her online boyfriend ended his relationship with her.
"We believe that (her) own words directly refute the scurrilous allegations made in her complaint. The attached documents, containing what we believe are (her) own words, are merely the tip of the investigative iceberg," Cornwell said.
Rather than crying in her truck in the parking lot, and driving away after the alleged assault, as she had claimed, Cornwell said the woman sent "light-hearted e-mails and engaged in benign chatter" with her online boyfriend less than two hours after the alleged assault.
Cornwell said the woman claimed in her civil lawsuit that she suffered great mental anguish and damage and was hospitalized because of the alleged rape.
She "admits that the cause of her taking three months off plus an additional six months (in which she is hospitalized) was due to her online boyfriend ... breaking her heart."
The woman's "own words are completely inconsistent with her allegations that Mr. Roethlisberger raped her and caused her hospitalization," Cornwell said.
Roethlisberger's attorneys are seeking to have the lawsuit moved from Reno to Douglas County.
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