Kobe Bryant's former maid Maria Jimenez was dumped from the family in March of 2008, a move Jimenez claims stinks of crappy treatment in a wrongful termination suit dropped on the Bryants this week by their steaming-mad former employee in an Orange County court.
↵↵Jimenez claims -- among a general accusation of ill-treament, badgering, and harassment -- that Vanessa Bryant, Kobe's wife, forced the maid to put her hand in a bag full of dog feces to punish her for improper handling of a pricey blouse. You just read that. We're not making it up. Look, someone else wrote it first, and they're all journalistic and stuff: ↵
↵↵⇥The Laker star's wife also left dog feces on the floor for Jimenez to clean up, according to the claim. One time, Vanessa Bryant screamed at Jimenez for putting an expensive blouse in the clothes washer. Vanessa Bryant then demanded that Jimenez put her hand in a bag of dog feces to retrieve the price tag for the blouse. ↵↵It should be said that Mr. and Mrs. Bryant are "very wealthy people", and "very wealthy people" are often sued for money by "people without much money" it in an effort to become "people with slightly more money." (I'm fairly certain those are technical terms. Economist readers, write in to correct me there.) As with any case, there's plenty of financial incentive for Jimenez to make an accusation like this. ↵
↵With that said: something directly from the Mommie Dearest Human Resources Handbook of How To Deal With Your Employees, something so foul and deranged, something so bizarre it could not possibly be true ... generally these things tend to be totally and completely accurate, if only because making them up is difficult because while people lie easily, it's rare that they lie so creatively. We all won't know the truth, ultimately, but if there's an ounce of truth to the accusation we know exactly what Kobe Bryant had to do after publicly acknowledging infidelity to Vanessa in 2004: buy a $4 million ring for her, and put his hand in the bag for people who can't behave. ↵
↵This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.