WAUKESHA, Wis. (Court TV) — Here in the northern plains states, folks tend to get a little winter weary. After countless days of subzero temperatures, lips cracking in the cold and snowfall measured in the tonnage, spring fever hits people head-on like a lineman barreling down on a running back at full steam. Year after year and Sunday after Sunday, this excitement gets channeled into one communal ritual. Football. This is football country, and people in these parts bleed green and gold.

The Green Bay Packers are practically royalty in this region. Even the team scrubs are local heroes. So when a three-time all-pro shows up at an after-prom party, teens in attendance — and adult chaperones alike — hang on his every word and go out of their way to make an impression.

Mark Chmura and his wife Lynda

Sure, some of the Packers have been in trouble with the law lately, charged with crimes like marijuana possession and obstruction of justice. And the NFL in general has been under fire because of such high-profile criminal trials as those of Rae Carruth, convicted of conspiring to murder his pregnant girlfriend, and Lawrence Phillips, who will stand trial for charges of beating his girlfriend.

But no one imagined the Pack's all-pro tight end — a vocal conservative who would not go to the White House after the team's 1997 Super Bowl victory because of Bill Clinton's "immoral" behavior — would ever be standing before a judge, facing accusations that are equally damning.

Mark Chmura pleaded not guilty to third-degree sexual assault and enticement of a minor, stemming from an incident that occurred at a party last spring in this affluent Milwaukee suburb. If convicted, the 31-year-old Chmura — who is free on $5,000 bail — could face up to 40 years in prison.

The alleged victim was a 17-year-old named Allison, the former babysitter of Chmura's children. He and his wife of nine years, Lynda, have two children.

Catholic Memorial High School, where the students attended

According to her statement made at a preliminary hearing in May, in the early hours of April 9, 2000, some Catholic Memorial High School juniors and seniors were having an after-prom party at the home of Robert Gessert, 43, in the Hartland subdivision.

Life of the Party

Gessert's daughter Jamie, a Memorial student, was hosting the party, and the youths were all wound up, throwing down beers, sea breezes and other concoctions. The party was in full swing at 3:30 a.m. when a surprise came knocking.

Chmura and Gessert are friends, and according to the alleged victim's sworn complaint, when Chmura walked in the door, the atmosphere electrified.

The high school football players at the party all jockeyed for position around the Packer. He obliged them, posing for pictures and signing autographs. Chmura reportedly impressed the kids by prank-calling his teammates and leaving funny messages on their voicemail. After a while, the alleged victim says in her statement, Chmura appeared "really drunk" and started taunting the partygoers.

"You call this a party?" he said, according to her statement. "Where's all the alcohol?"

He allegedly introduced the students to "beer pong," a drinking game whose object is to bounce a ping-pong ball into cups of beer lined up on either side of a ping-pong table. When someone makes it in, the opposing team has to drink.

House of Robert Gessert, site of the prom party

The kids were loving it. Allison and a student named Joe played. She says she had about two drinks during the game, and three to four drinks the whole night. Her first drink was vodka and Mountain Dew; the second was whiskey and Coke.

After a few rounds of the game, Gessert announced that it was "hot tub time," and the party — several high schoolers, Gessert and Chmura — moved outside to the hot tub. Some of the girls said they didn't have swimsuits, and Gessert allegedly replied, "No problem," they could tub in their skivvies.

The site of the prom held before the party

According to several accounts, at 4:30 a.m., Allison changed into a bathing suit borrowed from Gessert's daughter. Chmura reportedly stripped down to his briefs and joined the other eight tubbers. The host of the party, Gessert, would later be accused of sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman, identified as Kim, in that hot tub. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of second- and fourth-degree sexual assault, and his trial is set for March 13.

At about 5:30 a.m., a hot tub fuse blew, and as the water cooled people started to get out. Allison, who says she had been in the tub for a little more than half an hour, went upstairs to Jamie's room to change into her jeans and black tank top.

As she was coming down the stairs, she claims Chmura asked her to come to him. At the time, the alleged victim had known Chmura for a year and a half, having babysat for the Chmuras' children about five times — sometimes during parties, sometimes alone in their home with the kids.

Robert Gessert

He was standing in the doorway of a bathroom opposite the stairs with a towel wrapped around his waist, she says. According to her statement, Chmura took her by the arm and pulled her into the bathroom. He closed and locked the door, she says, fondled her, pulled her pants down and had sexual intercourse with her.

The whole incident took less than a minute, according to the alleged victim. She says she never consented to it but never told him to stop, never cried out for help and did not resist him. Allison says she was too shocked to react because it happened so quickly.

Witness Reports

What complicates the case and may cast doubt on the alleged victim's account is that when the bathroom door opened and she emerged, several conflicting witness accounts emerged also.

Two differing statements have been offered by Catholic Memorial High School football player Michael Kleber, who talked to Allison both before and after the alleged incident. In his original statement to police, Kleber — now 17 and a senior — said that when Allison was about to enter the bathroom, he told her that Chmura was in there, and she gave him a "smile" as she went in and shut the door behind her.

In the first of Kleber's two accounts, he claimed Allison left the bathroom with her clothes on. He then went down to the basement and Allison came down shortly afterward and fell to the floor, Kleber said.

"[I] said to her, 'Tell me right now, what did you just do with him. I want to know now,'" Kleber wrote in his first formal statement to police on April 11. "She said: 'Nothing. I swear on my life. I swear on my parents' life. I swear on the holy Bible. I didn't do a thing.'"

Michael Kleber

In a second statement, given a month later to prosecutors, Kleber said he couldn't remember all the events clearly, and he made no reference to seeing Allison follow Chmura into the bathroom.

The reason for the change in his statement has been hotly debated. Defense lawyers for Chmura and Gessert have accused the district attorney of coercing Kleber into changing his statement. The lawyers claim that Bucher threatened the high school boy with charges of underage drinking and obstruction of justice. Bucher denies these allegations.

Kleber has retracted his second statement and is expected to testify at trial in a manner consistent with his first statement to police.

A third account came from Kim, the student who claims Gessert assaulted her in the hot tub. When Kim realized that her friend had disappeared into the bathroom with Chmura for what seemed to be quite a while, she says she started banging on the door. Kim later told police that she heard a rustling sound coming from inside the bathroom, and when the door swung open, Allison ran out "with her eyes very big and a look of panic on her face."

Hospital where Chmura's victim went after the alleged attack

Later that morning, she says, both girls told a friend's mother they had been sexually assaulted. They went to a hospital to be examined within three hours and reported the incident to police later that day.

The defense denies the allegations. But it is unknown whether they will deny that any sexual act took place or say that there was consensual sex. Chmura is represented by Gerald Boyle, who is well known in Wisconsin and who gained national prominence for defending serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

What is clear is that the defense will try to show that the alleged victim was inconsistent in her various statements to friends, as well as to medical and law enforcement personnel.

Chmura's house, where police arrested him

According to the Associated Press, Chmura's lawyers plan to argue that the girl's hymen was intact after the party, proving he didn't assault her. Prosecutors contend it is not unusual for the hymen to remain intact after a sexual assault.

The prosecution — which is being represented at trial by District Attorney Paul Bucher — laid out its case in detail in an 11-page criminal complaint. Little physical evidence has been reported, perhaps because Waukesha County Circuit Judge Mark Gempeler issued a gag order on the lawyers, who have been sparring for months. But Boyle points out that no DNA evidence implicating Chmura has been discovered.

In a recent development, Gempeler barred a pubic hair found by police at the crime scene from being entered as physical evidence, saying the defense didn't have enough time to analyze it.

Kick-Off

Mark Chmura's team photo

The trial is expected to last a week to 10 days. Because of extensive publicity, the jury was selected in another county, but the trial will take place in Waukesha County. The jury will be sequestered for the duration of the trial and court will meet on Saturdays.

The alleged victim — who graduated from high school in May and is now a college freshman — is expected to testify. So is the 18-year-old girl who accused Gessert of the hot tub assault, although it is unclear which details of her accusation will be aired during Chmura's proceeding. Because the women are alleged victims of sexual assault, neither of their last names have been publicly disclosed.

In the end, though, this trial promises to hike up a few more spiraling surprises. This is, after all, Lombardi country, where football players have historically had a sort of diplomatic immunity.

Chmura's celebrity hasn't helped him so far. The girl's mother said she was enraged when she learned of what supposedly happened at the party. "I said, 'Who is he, because I'm going to kill him,'" she told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "I wanted to shoot him. And we do have a gun in our house."