By Sharon Coolidge
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A former Hamilton County assistant prosecutor will probably be basketball star Kobe Bryant's judge.

Speakout!, the political newspaper of Eagle County, Colo. - where the Los Angeles Laker has been charged with sexual assault - reported that under the system set up at the courthouse, District Court Judge Thomas Moorhead oversees cases ending in Bryant's case number.

Moorhead and various court personnel confirmed the assignment to Speakout! - barring any change by 5th Judicial Presiding Judge Terry Ruckriegle - according to the newspaper's publisher, Michael Cacioppo.

Moorhead did not return a call to his office Tuesday.

He left for Colorado in 1992. A 1975 graduate of Northern Kentucky University's Salmon P. Chase College of Law, he worked in the Hamilton County prosecutor's office 1977-87.

"Tom was an outstanding prosecutor and an outstanding attorney in private practice," said Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Steven Martin, who worked with Moorhead in the prosecutor's office.

"He has a suburb judicial temperament," Martin added.

Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor Mark Piepmeier tried his first murder case with Moorhead in 1984.

"He taught me how to try a case," Piepmeier said. "He was not overly flamboyant, but he knew the law. He was incredibly prepared every time he went into the courtroom."

Piepmeier said he has tried to emulate Moorhead's style during his own career.

"He was an incredible prosecutor," Piepmeier said. "I'm sure he's a great judge."

E-mail scoolidge@enquirer.com