
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 18, 1990                   TAG: 9005180864
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CAPITALS' KYPREOS SAYS HE SAW LIMO INCIDENT

A Washington Capitals player has told authorities that he witnessed several of his teammates struggling with a 17-year-old woman who claims she was sexually assaulted in a limousine outside a Georgetown bar.

Nick Kypreos, a Washington left wing, told investigators Thursday that he briefly stepped into the limousine but quickly exited when he saw the woman struggling with the other players.

Kypreos appeared before a District of Columbia Superior Court grand jury investigating the woman's allegations, according to law enforcement sources.

Another Capitals player, right wing Steve Leach, has told investigators that he has dated the alleged victim and that she called him later Saturday morning to tell him about the events inside the limousine, law enforcement sources said.

The 17-year-old told police that the four Capitals players participated in raping and sodomizing her inside the limousine parked outside the Champions sports bar early Saturday morning.

In her statement to authorities, she said the four players were Dino Ciccarelli, 30, who plays right wing; Geoff Courtnall, 27, who plays left wing; and defensemen Neil Sheehy, 30, and Scott Stevens, 26.

Courtnall has declined to comment on the allegations and the other three have denied them. No charges have been filed against the four.

Team officials have declined comment on the incident.

Police investigators also have interviewed 22-year-old Sheriese Mayo, who went to Champions with the alleged victim that night.

Mayo said Thursday that she spoke to the woman the next morning and accompanied her to Georgetown University Hospital, where the girl was examined.

Mayo, a waitress who works with the 17-year-old at a sports bar in Fairfax, Va., told The Washington Post that she made arrangements to go with her friend to the Champions party. She said the woman picked her up at the restaurant about 9:30 p.m. Friday. Mayo said she and the alleged victim arrived at Champions about half an hour later.

Mayo said once at the sports bar, she showed her identification and her friend explained that she did not have identification with her but she knew some of the players.

She said that after about two hours, the pair split up and did not talk again until the next morning, during an employees' meeting at the Fairfax bar.

Mayo said that her friend told her that the players offered her a ride to her car in the limousine.

The woman said in her account to police that Stevens stepped out of the limousine and ordered the limousine driver to get out and be the lookout for the four players.

by CNB