Attorney for Patrick Kane's Accuser Drops His Client

A day after raising the specter of evidence tampering in the Patrick Kane rape investigation, the attorney representing the woman whose accused the Chicago Blackhawks star of rape has dropped his client and questioned the veracity of story he shared with news media on Wednesday.

In a press conference Thursday evening at his Buffalo, N.Y., law office, Thomas Eoanno said: “I don’t have confidence in the version that was provided to me.”

Eoanno told Julie DiCaro, radio anchor for 670 AM The Score, there is “zero evidence” the woman accusing Kane of rape was involved in the “misrepresentations made by her mother.”

After Eoanno’s backtracking, Kane’s attorney Paul Cambria raised the possibility his client could sue the accuser.

“I feel Patrick Kane has been victimized,” Cambria told the Chicago Tribune. A lawsuit is “not outside realm of possibility.”

Speaking to The Buffalo News, Cambria called the entire case a “hoax.”

“This case needs to go away. It’s tainted from one end to the other,” he said. “It’s obvious to me that Eoannou dropped out of the case because he was lied to by his client’s family. They fabricated evidence. I told you yesterday that this whole thing was a hoax, and now it is obvious.”

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On Wednesday, Eoanno dropped a bombshell, telling reporters a rape-kit evidence bag was left on her mother’s doorstep sometime this week. The bag, folded in half and torn, was discovered Tuesday afternoon. He said he had “grave concerns” about chain of custody regarding the evidence.

“The bag has a label on it. It contains my client’s identity. It contains my client’s birthday,” Eoannou said. “It contains the location where the rape kit was done, and it confirms the nurse’s initials who performed the rape kit.”

County investigators visited with Eoanno on Thursday. Based on new information, the attorney now doubts the events as presented to him.

Erie County’s district attorney, Frank Sedita III, is expected to hold a Friday 10 a.m. press conference to discuss the evidence tampering allegation. Sedita has said the situation will be investigated.

The 21-year-old woman Kane met in a bar on Aug. 2 has accused him of sexually assaulting her in his home in Hamburg, N.Y. The investigation of Kane is now entering its ninth week. Kane has not been charged with a crime.

Eoanno did say the evidence bag is genuine, however. The Hamburg police and the county officials securing the evidence maintain the chain of custody has not been broken and all evidence is accounted for.

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