Moments before Australian pro golfer Robert Allenby injured himself by passing out and hitting his head on a lava rock early Saturday, he told a homeless man that he was depressed and had been drugged at a strip club where he went to get some "action."
That account came Wednesday from Chris Khamis, a 47-year-old homeless man who says he was present when Allenby hurt himself.
Police have opened a second-degree robbery and fraudulent use of credit card investigations in the case, which has received international media attention amid wildly varying versions.
"There was no crime (when I was present). It was his stupidity," Khamis said in an interview. "(Allenby) passed out and hit his head. I was there. Nobody pushed him out of a car."
Khamis didn’t actually see Allenby hurt himself because he had turned around, looking for someone on the street with a phone to call a taxi. At the time, Allenby was not injured.
"I had turned around for just a second," Khamis said. "Nobody was around us."
But when Khamis looked back at Allenby, the golfer was on the ground, bleeding.
"There he was. I was like, ‘Oh, my God!’"
Khamis said he gave Allenby a stack of napkins from his bag and tried to get him to focus, but Allenby kept repeating that he was a millionaire and waved around his American Express Platinum Card.
Khamis told Allenby he wasn’t sure a taxi would take a credit card and offered to give his last $7 to pay for Allenby’s taxi fare back to his hotel.
"He was very down, very, very down, about losing," Khamis said of Allenby before he was injured. Allenby had missed the cut to the Sony Open on Friday, the afternoon before the incident.
Khamis’ version of events contradicts what Allenby has told other media — a story that he was drugged, kidnapped, thrown into a car trunk and dumped 61⁄2 miles away in a park.
Allenby told the media that he was eating dinner at Amuse Wine Bar at the Honolulu Design Center Friday night and was going downstairs to look for a friend. The next thing he recalled was being bloody on a street, with two men kicking him on the ground.
He said a homeless woman rescued him by getting him away from the homeless men and that the woman told him she saw him get thrown from a car trunk, causing his injuries.
He said he didn’t recall being in the trunk because he was knocked unconscious and only learned of it from the homeless woman.
That woman, Charade Keane, has said she never told Allenby she saw him in a trunk and that she didn’t know how he was hurt.
Keane came upon Allenby at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday. She said he was bloodied and sitting on a planter across the street from the bar, on the Diamond Head-makai corner of Kapiolani Boulevard and Piikoi Street.
She said two homeless men she knew were arguing with Allenby and she tried to get Allenby away because she thought the men were trying to rob him.
Apparently, they were Khamis and his friend Toa Kaili.
She and Allenby crossed the street toward the Original Pancake House and Allenby commented that his wallet and phone were missing, but the thieves left him one lone credit card.
Eventually, an emergency medical technician in the military showed up, spooking the two men, who left.
The military man paid for a taxi to take Allenby back to his hotel, the Kahala Hotel & Resort.
On Monday, Allenby met Keane outside the Kahala, thanked her and gave her a $1,000 gift card, according to KHON2.
Honolulu police Capt. Rade Vanic said police have recovered video related to the credit card investigation. He said police are taking Allenby’s story as the truth until the investigation is done.
"There’s still a lot of investigating to do," he said. "The allegation that he’s making is serious."
Vanic said he hasn’t seen Allenby’s statement to police and that Allenby may have given police a different account from what he’s said in public.
He said victims sometimes fabricate stories for various reasons, such as in sexual assault cases. Speaking generally, he said a high-profile victim may fabricate a story because he could be worried about sponsorships.
Asked whether Allenby’s injuries could have come from a fall, Vanic said police are not trained to determine the different types of injuries and that an injury from being assaulted by a rock could look the same as an injury from falling onto a rock.
A police source who was not authorized to speak about the investigation and who spoke on condition of anonymity said charges to Allenby’s stolen card amount to more than $10,000. The source said officers were still trying to determine the identity of the thief.
Khamis, who lives in a homeless encampment on Olomehani Street in Kakaako, said that before Allenby hit his head, he was trying to cheer him up, telling him he hadn’t lost everything and would wake up feeling better in the morning.
Khamis questioned why no one had taken Allenby’s luxury watch if he had been robbed.
He described Allenby as nodding in and out of consciousness, like he was "definitely on a pill."
Kaili, who lives at Ala Moana Beach Park, said he and Khamis first came across Allenby when he was passed out on the sidewalk at Kapiolani Boulevard and Piikoi Street at about 11 p.m. Friday.
He said he roused Allenby to help him and Allenby began swearing and accusing him and Khamis of stealing his phone and wallet.
Khamis said Allenby grabbed him by the arm, made a gesture like he was going to punch him, and said, "I’m going to hit you."
The two men left Allenby, but found the golfer sitting on the rocks at the end of a row of hedges near the corner about an hour later.
Allenby again began accusing Kaili of robbing him and Kaili left in disgust, but said his friend Khamis stayed to help. When Kaili returned to check on his friend, Allenby was bloody.
Khamis said he had to keep Allenby from falling over four or five times.
He said he never saw Allenby’s phone or wallet.
