Lawyer: QB should be free

Roethlisberger’s attorney: E-mails should absolve him

? A former Nevada casino worker who accused Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger of rape in a civil lawsuit should drop the case because her own e-mails and text messages prove she wasn’t assaulted, his attorney said.

The woman “should abandon her lawsuit immediately and admit that Ben Roethlisberger did not rape her,” Roethlisberger’s attorney W. David Cornwell said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. “We believe that (the woman’s) own words directly refute the scurrilous allegations made in her complaint.”

The woman contends in the lawsuit filed last month in Washoe County District Court in Reno, Nev., that Roethlisberger raped her in his room at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe in July 2008 when he was there to play in a celebrity golf tournament.

The woman never went to authorities; her lawsuit says she didn’t file a criminal complaint because she feared Harrah’s would side with Roethlisberger and she would be fired. She also accused Harrah’s officials of orchestrating a cover-up.

Cornwell provided the AP and other news outlets with 18 pages of e-mails and texts purportedly between the 31-year-old woman and a male friend.

In her lawsuit, the woman said she was distraught and left work after the assault.

But in an e-mail sent from her work station two hours after the alleged attack, she sounds as if nothing has occurred, Cornwell said. “Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh I finally got away,” she writes. Nine minutes later she sent him a note filled with mock baby talk, Cornwell said.

In text messages sent in December, the man asked her what would happen if they broke up, Cornwell said.

“I would date Ben Roethlisberger,” she answered. “hahahahah.”