Shinn Trial To Begin Monday

NBA commissioner David Stern could be a witness when the sexual assault lawsuit retrial of Charlotte Hornets owner George Shinn opens Monday.

Shinn is defending himself against a woman's allegations that he lured her to his Tega Cay house in September 1997 and forced her to have sex.

Women in sexual assault cases usually are not identified in the media, but Leslie Price agreed earlier this year to let herself be identified in a Charlotte (N.C.) Observer interview.

Her lawsuit first reached trial in September, but a judge declared a mistrial as Hurricane Floyd threatened the state.

A week later, a grand jury refused to indict Shinn on criminal charges. Prosecutor Tommy Pope already had said there was not enough evidence, but after new allegations surfaced, including one from a former Hornets cheerleader who said Shinn coerced her into having sex, Pope said he wanted the grand jury to hear the case.

Price tearfully thanked her supporters after the grand jury refused to indict Shinn and said "I pray, justice is going to be served at some point."

Now, with the civil case ready for retrial, "it's a whole lot different. The criminal case is over," Shinn's lawyer, Bill Diehl, said. "We don't have that hanging over Mr. Shinn's head."

Diehl would not discuss how he would defend Shinn against Price's allegations, citing a gag order by Circuit Judge Costa M. Pleicones. However, over Diehl's objections, Pleicones has agreed to allow Court TV to televise the trial nationally.

Late last month, Pleicones said Price's lawyers could call Stern to testify about what the NBA knew about sexual assault accusations made against Shinn and whether the league investigated. Stern has refused to comment and a league spokesman has refused to say whether the NBA investigated Shinn.

Pleicones also said he would allow testimony from the former Hornets cheerleader who says she had a two-year sexual encounter with Shinn that ended in 1996.

Like Price, the cheerleader says Shinn lured her to his home for a business meeting with a third party who never showed up. Each woman says Shinn led her on a tour of the home and grabbed her in the master bedroom.

Shinn has refused to answer questions about the relationship, saying it was consensual and, therefore, irrelevant.

His defense in Price's lawsuit relies on showing she was promiscuous and that the sex was consensual. Shinn also has a slander lawsuit against Price pending in North Carolina that claims she tried to extort $5 million from him. Price has denied that and said she refused $200 that Shinn offered her after their sexual encounter.

Her suit, filed in February 1998, says she met Shinn through his nephew, who was at Amethyst at the Willows Treatment Facility in Charlotte along with her. Amethyst treats people for drug and alcool abuse and behavioral problems.

Price goes into the trial with a new lawyer after Dick Harpootlian asked to be taken off the case the same day the grand jury refused to indict Shinn. Victoria Eslinger, Price's new lead lawyer, would not comment beyond confirming that she represented Price.

Since the allegations first surfaced, Shinn has been divorced by his wife, moved to Florida and made a deal to sell as much as half of the Hornets to an Atlanta businessman.

As he did in the previous mistrial, Pleicones told both sides to work again on a settlement. Neither Diehl nor Eslinger would say whether they had talked.

"We're planning to try the lawsuit. I suspect that somebody will win and somebody will lose," Diehl said.

He expects the trial will last at least a week.

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