By: Jason Phillips
One of the biggest NHL stories over the summer has been the investigation of Buffalo native and three time Stanley Cup champion Patrick Kane allegedly raping a female at his Hamburg home after a night of partying. This whole story started on the first day of August when Pat Kane and several of his friends went to Skybar in downtown Buffalo. They met some girls and brought them back to Kane’s house, culminating in one of the girls going to the hospital to have a rape kit administered to her.
From the start of the investigation process it should be pretty clear cut. There is evidence that she was at his home on the night in question and she had the rape kit administered to her right after that evening; this is probably enough evidence to get a warrant from a judge to test Pat Kane’s DNA. If his DNA matches the one found in the rape kit then the case should be done and over with. However, for two months this case has been dragged out without a clear reason; the only official response has been that no comments can be made as the investigation is ongoing.  Recently, however, word has come out that there would be a grand jury hearing on whether to officially charge Kane in a few days.
However, this hearing was postponed almost as suddenly as it was announced.  The attorney representing the accuser held a press conference out of the blue even though there had been no official word from either side of the investigation for the past two months. He claimed that the bag containing the rape kit was delivered to the victim’s mother’s house. He called for new federal investigation to start and said that the Hamburg Police had been inept in handling this specific case, calling it the strangest thing he’s ever seen in thirty years of practicing law. The attorney then resigned the next day, saying that morally he could no longer represent the accuser. A day later he came out publically and explained what happened and how we together need to figure out what is going on with this case. It’s even stranger that the Hamburg police said they never lost the evidence and the bag delivered to the house of the victim’s mother was a fake. Hopefully this strange saga will sometime come to an end with an official word of if he will be charged or not.
