Patrick Kane 'Rape-Kit Evidence Bag' a 'Hoax' by the Mom: Prosecutor

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Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita III on Friday said the “rape-kit evidence bag” — presented by the attorney of Patrick Kane’s accuser Wednesday — is an “elaborate hoax” perpetrated by the accuser’s mother.

“A rape kit is a box,” Sedita said, holding one up. “This is a rape kit. As you can plainly see it is a box.

“Rape kits in Erie County are not placed in bags. ... And they are not submitted in bags.”

The integrity of the evidence and the criminal investigation of the Chicago Blackhawks star remains intact, Sedita told reporters at a press conference in Buffalo, broadcast on live TV in Chicago.

“Neither bag, not that plastic bag, not that hospital bag, contained the rape kit,” Sedita said. “The forensic evidence in this case was not tampered with nor was it compromised.”

Sedita said the paper bag was given to the accuser’s mother at the hospital to hold the young woman’s top. Sedita said the mother told him on Thurday she did not receive the bag at the hospital, but Sedita said he does not believe her.

“I suspected this was a red herring right from the beginning,” Sedita said. “It’s not an evidence bag. It’s a hospital bag.”

» MORE: Key Patrick Kane Witness No Longer Wants to Testify

When detectives went to the mother’s home to collect the top, they put the garment into a Hamburg police evidence bag and left the home, Sedita said, and the hospital bag was left with the mother.

To get to the bottom of this situation, Sedita said, the district attorney’s investigators reviewed video at the hospital and in the evidence facility, and interviewed the woman’s attorney, Thomas Eoanno, her mother, a detective and the nurse who handled the evidence at the hospital.

“Now I have to figure out where I go from here,” Sedita said.

Eoanno, the attorney representing the woman who accused the Chicago Blackhawks star of rape, on Wednesday said he had “grave concerns” about the handling of evidence after a plastic bag with his client’s name and other official markings was dropped in the doorway of the accuser’s mother.

A day later, Eoanno 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, Eoanno said: “I don’t have confidence in the version that was provided to me.” Eoanno later 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.” He said he still believes his client was attacked.

The complainant’s mother said she found the paper bag inside a plastic bag in her doorway.

Asked whether charges could be filed against the mother, Sedita said that’s not likely. Telling a lie to your attorney is not a crime.

» MORE: 670 The Score Reporter on Kane Story Kept from Work by Twitter Threats

Sedita praised Eoanno for cooperating fully with the investigation. He said he believes Eoanno acted in good faith, albeit “recklessly,” when he staged his press conference on Wednesday.

Sedita said the Erie County district attorney has not spoken with the accuser regarding the plastic-bag “evidence” and he is not allowed to.

The district attorney said he would not speak at all to the investigation of Kane, other than to say “the question in my mind is not when this case will go to a grand jury, the question in my mind is if this case will go to a grand jury.”

A reporter asked Sedita how, as the elected district attorney, he could let such chaos erupt around the investigation of Kane, which is now in its ninth week.

“Are you kidding me?” Sedita shot back. “This office is not responsible for this circus. I did not call a press conference and do what Mr. Eoanno did. ... I have not leaked any information. I have not talked about forensic testing ... This office and my staff has conducted itself professionally.”

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