Former US astronaut Lisa Nowak did not wear diapers during her 1,530km road trip to confront a romantic rival, her lawyer said, disputing one of the more bizarre details to emerge from the NASA love triangle.
"The biggest lie in this preposterous tale that has been told is that my client drove from Houston, Texas, to Orlando, Florida, nonstop, wearing a diaper," Donald Lykkebak said Friday after filing motions to suppress evidence in Nowak's criminal case. "That is an absolute fabrication."
The tidbit that Nowak wore diapers during her trip was written in the police report filed after Nowak's arrest in February.
"I then asked Mrs Nowak why she had baby diapers," according to the charging affidavit written by Officer William "Chris" Becton. "Mrs. Nowak said that she didn't want to stop and use the restroom, so she used the diapers to collect her urine."
There were toddler-size diapers in her car when she was arrested, but they were several years old, Lykkebak said. Nowak and her family had used them when Houston was evacuated in 2005 during Hurricane Rita, he said.
The diaper detail became fodder for late-night TV comics and talk radio and even inspired an episode of the NBC show "Law & Order."
"It jeopardizes our ability to have a fair trial when the accused is the butt of jokes," Lykkebak said.
Lykkebak waited until after he had taken a deposition from the police officer to dispute the statement about the diapers in the police report, said Marti Mackenzie, a spokeswoman for the defense attorney. The deposition interview was Thursday.
An Orlando police spokeswoman, Sergeant Barb Jones, said she could not comment about the case specifically. She said a court would determine the accuracy of the facts.
Nowak, 44, was charged with attempted kidnapping, battery and burglary with assault in a confrontation at Orlando International Airport with Colleen Shipman, the girlfriend of former astronaut and shuttle pilot Bill Oefelein. Oefelein told detectives he had a two-year relationship with Nowak but ended it some time after he started a relationship with Shipman.
Nowak has pleaded not guilty and her trial is set for September. She was dismissed from the astronaut corps a month after her arrest.
Oefelein was dismissed from the corps at the beginning of June.
Lykkebak filed a motion asking a judge to prevent statements that Nowak made to police from being entered into evidence, claiming she had not been properly advised of her constitutional rights.
The defense attorney also asked that a transcript of the police interview be sealed from the public, contending the media would use it for entertainment value and taint potential jurors.
Circuit Judge Marc Lubet said that he wanted Lykkebak to present more case law supporting his argument before he would issue a ruling.
The judge said such an order might be "futile" since prosecutors likely were going to bring up aspects from the transcript during hearings.
Lykkebak also asked that evidence found in Nowak's car not be allowed to be introduced in court, saying it was seized without a search warrant.
Police officers recovered maps to Shipman's home, large garbage bags, latex gloves and Shipman's flight information.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS