The sexual assault investigation into the Chicago Blackhawks' Patrick Kane takes a bizarre turn
In a press conference broadcast by NBC Chicago, attorney Thomas J. Eoannou says the evidence bag in question turned up on the doorstep of the alleged victim's mother.
Eoannou presented the bag to the media, noting that it had been left anonymously between the storm door and the front door of the house.
"This evidence bag has been ripped open," Eoannou said. "In my 30 years-plus of being both a prosecutor and a defense attorney, I have never seen an evidence bag outside of a police lab, a prosecutor's office, or a courtroom, let alone find one in the doorway of a rape victim's mother's home."
Eoannou said the bag at one point contained the rape kit used in the investigation.
Eoannou went on to say that he would be requesting an independent law enforcement investigation into how the evidence bag supposedly ended up at the mother's house.
Kane's attorney, Paul Cambria, met with the media shortly after the press conference and downplayed the possibility of evidence tampering, noting that "the only one that can lose in this scenario is Kane."
"Unless they can show that the [evidence] has been compromised from the time it was collected from the girl to the time it was tested, the results are intact and they clearly eliminate Patrick Kane as a contributor of DNA," Cambria said, referring to an earlier report that DNA evidence from the sexual assault kit tested negative for Kane's DNA.
"If the evidence was compromised after the technician analyzed it, we would then be deprived of the opportunity to independently test it," he added.
Cambria went on to say that they would have no reason to tamper with and possibly render the evidence inadmissible, noting that they "are pleased with the results" of the initial testing.
We have reached out to the Erie County District Attorney's office for comment.