Attorneys for Byron Scott are asking a judge to disallow lawyers for a 53-year-old woman who accuses the former Lakers guard of sexually abusing her in 1987 during a team event at her high school from using disparaging terms when referring to Scott during trial, including “rapist” and “sexual predator.”
The Burbank Superior Court complaint alleges sexual battery and false imprisonment. Scott, now 64, is named as a defendant along with Campbell Hall School, a private, prestigious K-12 independent Episcopal school. The plaintiff was 15 years old at the time and Scott was 26.
In court papers filed on various dates earlier this month, Scott’s attorneys are asking for a fluffy of pretrial rulings in advance of the scheduled May 27 trial. One such request asks Judge Lee Arian to exclude plaintiff references to Scott as, among other things, a “sexual predator,” “rapist,” “groomer” or “molester.”
“Such name calling is not allowed in either a criminal case or a civil case,” Scott’s lawyers write.
The terms are the plaintiff’s conclusions and the “obvious goal is of swaying the jury in favor of plaintiff and against Scott,” according to the ex-player’s lawyers’ court papers.
Scott’s attorneys also want the plaintiff, her attorneys and her witnesses prevented from referring to the woman as a “victim.”
“Neither the police nor the district attorney were ever notified of this alleged assault,” Scott’s lawyers state in their court papers. “Calling her a victim connotes a criminal act and is inappropriate.”
The plaintiff’s suit stated that she was attending summer school at Campbell Hall when she was sexually assaulted by Scott in a locked janitor’s closet in the school gymnasium. The Lakers were at the school to film an instructional basketball video and meet with students, parents and faculty members, according to the complaint.
But in their court papers, Scott’s attorneys stated that he believed the girl was a member of the production crew and not a student.
“Simply stated, Scott has testified that he and plaintiff engaged in a consensual sex act where Scott reasonably believed that plaintiff was over the age of 18,” Scott’s lawyers stated in their pleadings while adding that the plaintiff testified that she “hung out” with the production crew.
The encounter between the plaintiff and Scott was never told to anyone at the school and remained unreported until the 2022 lawsuit, Scott’s attorneys further stated, adding that in their dismissal pleadings the Campbell Hall lawyers wrongly stated that the former NBA player admitted to committing a sexual assault.
“That is completely false,” Scott’s attorneys stated in their court papers while contending that the intimacy was consensual.
According to the suit filed in December 2022, the plaintiff loved school, had many friends and had never before kissed a boy.
“That summer, her innocence was shattered and her life forever altered,” the suit stated.