Woods' suspected mistress cancels her news conference
VIDEO - A lawyer for a New York woman who has denied having an affair with Tiger Woods has canceled a news conference that had been scheduled for Thursday in Los Angeles.
WATCH VIDEO ABOVE FOR RECAP OF TIGER WOODS’ STORY
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — A potentially explosive news conference with an alleged mistress was canceled and more details trickled out about the car accident that started all the trouble for Tiger Woods.
The news conference in Los Angeles for Rachel Uchitel, the woman who denied a tabloid report about an affair with Woods, was canceled about an hour before it was to begin Thursday.
High-profile attorney Gloria Allred, who was to make a statement about Uchitel’s relationship with golf’s No. 1 player, said it was called off because of “unforeseen circumstances.” Allred said she would have no further comment.
However, Allred’s daughter, Lisa Bloom, said the only conclusion is that her mother struck a deal with the Woods camp. Bloom, an attorney who worked with her mother for nine years and now is as a legal analyst for CBS, said Friday on “The Early Show” that she has never known Allred to cancel a news conference.
Bloom said that can only mean a confidential settlement was struck, which she estimated at being worth “at least a million dollars.”
“I know exactly how she operates,” Bloom said.
For the first time since last Friday, when Woods ran his SUV into a fire hydrant and a tree outside his Florida home, there were no news conferences involving police nor any statements from Woods on his Web site.
His last one was Wednesday, when he issued a statement conceding that he had “let my family down.” That followed a report in Us Weekly magazine of a cocktail waitress claiming to have had a 31-month affair with Woods.
The Associated Press obtained an audio recording of an interview the Florida Highway Patrol conducted with Woods’ neighbors after the accident. Troopers interviewed Jarius Adams, who called 911, and his sister, Kimberly Harris.
Harris told troopers that Woods’ mother, Kultida, and mother-in-law, Barbro Holmberg, were at the scene, but the AP could not confirm that. A voice that strongly resembles Woods’ mother is heard in the background during the 911 call saying loudly, “What happened?”
A spokeswoman for Holmberg, mother of Elin Nordegren, didn’t know if she was in Florida when the accident happened.
“I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so,” spokeswoman Ewa Malmborg said. “I have not been informed about that. She was here again working on Monday again anyway.”
In the FHP interview, a trooper asked Harris about the women and if they talked to anyone at the scene.
“The cops came, the Windermere cops came first, then the security guards came,” Harris said. “And then it appears Mr. Woods’ mom, and Tiger’s wife’s mom came out after the fact. I don’t know if they heard the commotion, I don’t if she, his wife, left and came back. But they walked across the grass and were outside as well.”
Woods’ peers, meanwhile, went from talking about him to playing in his $5.75 million golf tournament.
He previously pulled out of the Chevron World Challenge at Sherwood Country Club, an 18-player event that pays $1.35 million to the winner. Participants spent most of the week taking questions on their sport’s biggest star, most offering support and curious about details and some of the allegations.
More criticism came from Jesper Parnevik of Sweden, who once employed Woods’ wife as a nanny and told reporters Wednesday that he owed her an apology for introducing them.
“I have lost all respect for him, primarily as a man and a father,” Parnevik said in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet on Thursday from the PGA Tour qualifying tournament in West Palm Beach, Fla. “It doesn’t even feel like it matters what he has done on the golf course. My respect for him as a person is gone. We have been nice to Tiger before, but now he only has himself to blame.
“We thought better of him, but he is not the one we thought he was.”
Among star athletes Woods considers a close friend is Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers. They had dinner in Orlando, Fla., during the NBA finals this year.
When he heard the word “Tiger” in a question Wednesday, Bryant said, “Man, get off that. I knew there was going to be one.” Then he ended the interview.
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AP Special Corespondent Linda Deutsch in Los Angeles, AP Sports Writers Greg Beacham in Los Angeles and Antonio Gonzalez in Orlando, Fla., and Associated Press Writer Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm contributed to this report.
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