Book Excerpt: 'Out of Bounds'
— -- On the court, they generate millions of dollars for their teams and the NBA, and inspire millions of kids with their athleticism. But is a culture of crime gripping the NBA? Jeff Benedict investigates in his new book, Out of Bounds.
Chapter One — Gross Felony
Besides money, life in the NBA offers vast amounts of two other things: free time and sex. A pro game takes two hours to play. Throw in a couple hours for preparation and travel, and that leaves a tremendous amount of discretionary time. Much of that time is spent on the road, where NBA players play a minimum of forty-one games a year and spend as many as a hundred nights in hotels. This lifestyle leads many players to spend great amounts of time at strip clubs, topless bars, and other such nightspots. And players' celebrity status attracts a steady stream of opportunities for consensual sex. It is an environment hot-wired to produce allegations of sexual assault. This environment also makes it nearly impossible for a rape victim to file a criminal complaint against an NBA player without being labeled a groupie or a gold digger.
To overcome these labels, a rape victim's reputation must be clean enough to survive a relentless, well-financed effort to discredit her. Simply put, it takes a victim nothing short of Snow White to obtain a conviction in a sexual assault case against a celebrated athlete and emerge with a reputation still intact. Twenty-three-year-old Jenny Stevens said yes when the owner of A Nanny For You — a Seattle-area nanny agency — called on January 4, 2000, and asked if she would accept an interim position with a family in nearby Bellevue. A permanent nanny had already been placed with the family but couldn't begin work for about two weeks. Jenny had previously done short nanny stints with two other wealthy families. She needed the money. She had finished two years of study at a community college, completing a medical assistant training program, and was trying to save enough to return to school.
The agency told Jenny that the husband in the family she would be working for was an NBA player on the Seattle Sonics named Ruben Patterson.
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