Anthony Mason of the Charlotte Hornets was charged with statutory rape and sexual abuse Sunday in New York following accusations that he and a cousin had sex with 14 and 15-year-old sisters.
Mason and his cousin, Williams Duggins of Queens, N.Y., were freed on bail after Mason posted $20,000--a figure set by Judge Steven Paynter based on Mason's disorderly conduct conviction last fall--and Duggins put up $3,500.
Mason's attorney, Frank Rothman, said the former New York Knick was the victim of a setup. He also said Mason would appear at his next court date, set for March 9.
"If you have a satellite dish you can see him three nights a week on television. Where is he going to go?" asked Rothman.
Duggins was arrested once on a minor charge, and is an unemployed construction worker, according to his attorney, Edward M. Kratt. Paynter ordered the cousins not to contact one another.
Both attorneys said their clients offered to give blood samples for DNA tests to prove their innocence after Assistant District Attorney Scott Kessler said detectives were holding bedding from the alleged attack. The offer was not accepted.
The prosecutor also said that both men knew the girls' ages when they first met on Friday night.
Rothman said Sunday he has "a neutral witness to shatter allegations" that the girls were attacked by his client, and that Mason "did not have sex with these girls, oral or otherwise."
Before the arraignment, Deputy Chief Jane Perlov, chief of Queens detectives, told a news conference the two men and the girls met during a benefit basketball game at York College in Queens on Friday night, then drove to Duggins' home in Laurelton, Queens.
"They went willingly and were not held against their will," Perlov said of the two teenagers.
She said the alleged rapes occurred at the house, and the sexual abuse charge stemmed from events, which she did not specify further, that took place on the way there.
In addition to the charges of statutory rape and sexual abuse, both men were accused of endangering the welfare of a child, she said.
Perlov said the girls had gone afterward to the home of a relative, where they revealed details of the alleged attack, and police were called.
The girls were given physical exams at Franklin General Hospital and released.
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