The Duke Lacrosse Rape Scandal

[Walter Cronkite]

Accuser claimed she was raped in 1996 report

The woman who says she was raped by three members of Duke's lacrosse team also told police 10 years ago she was raped by three men, filing a 1996 complaint claiming she had been assaulted three years earlier when she was 14.

Authorities in nearby Granville County said Thursday that none of the men named in the decade-old report was ever charged with sexual assault there, but they didn't have details why.

A phone number for the accuser has been disconnected and her family declined to comment to The Associated Press. But relatives told Essence magazine in an online story this week that the woman declined to pursue the case out of fear for her safety.

The existence of the report surprised defense attorneys, one of whom has sought information about the accuser's past for use in attacking her credibility.

"That's the very first I've heard of that," said Bill Cotter, the attorney for indicted lacrosse player Collin Finnerty, who along with fellow Duke sophomore Reade Seligmann is charged with first-degree rape, kidnapping and sexual assault. He declined additional comment.

Attorney Joe Cheshire, who represents one of the uncharged players on the team, said he wants to know if prosecutors in the current case knew about the earlier allegation or if the accuser told them about it.

He added that he found it notable that authorities apparently declined to prosecute the earlier case.

"These are serious allegations, particularly for a person that age. In my mind, it would raise real issues about her credibility," he said.

Attorneys for Seligmann asked the court this week to order the state to turn over the accuser's medical, legal and education records, and hold a pretrial hearing to "determine if the complaining witness is even credible enough to provide reliable testimony."

The accuser, a 27-year-old student at North Carolina Central University in Durham, told police she was hired to perform as a stripper at a March 13 party, where she was raped by three men.

According to the Creedmoor police report in August 1996, when the woman was 18, she told officers she was raped and beaten by three men "for a continual time" in 1993, when she was 14. She told police she was attacked at an "unspecified location" on a street in Creedmoor, a town 15 miles northeast of Durham.

The report lists the names of the three men, but no other details. Creedmoor police Chief Ted Pollard said Thursday he had no recollection of the report, and his staff has been unable to find any additional information about it.

Durham police Officer Brian Bishop, who interviewed the accuser in 1996 while working on the Creedmoor force, said Thursday he had a vague recollection of the report but couldn't remember any details.

When asked about the accuser's previous report of rape, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong declined to comment.

Before Seligmann and Finnerty were indicted, attorneys for the players pointed to the accuser's criminal history when answering questions about their clients' legal troubles. The woman pleaded guilty to several misdemeanors in 2002.

Source: AP

[Walter Cronkite]

Defense wants DA off case, photo IDs thrown out

An attorney representing a Duke University lacrosse player accused of rape demanded the district attorney's removal from the case Monday and accused him of using it to help his election prospects.

District Attorney Mike Nifong faces a primary election Tuesday that could decide whether he remains in office. He has denied any political motivation behind his aggressive investigation.

"They don't want to go up against me," Nifong said when asked outside court Monday about the defense request for his removal.

In one of several motions filed Monday, defense attorney Kirk Osborn, who represents indicted lacrosse player Reade Seligmann, wrote of Nifong: "He created an actual conflict between his professional duty to search for the truth and his personal, vested interest in getting elected."

Osborn also asked the court to throw out the photo identifications made by the accuser, a 27-year-old student at a nearby university who had been hired to strip at a March 13 lacrosse team party, where she says she was beaten and raped.

He called the police photo lineup "unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistake and misidentification" because the accuser was only shown photos of lacrosse players. Osborn said Nifong was improperly involved in the lineup and led police to violate their own policies.

A grand jury last month indicted Seligmann, a sophomore from Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, a sophomore from Garden City, N.Y., on charges of rape, kidnapping and sexual assault of the exotic dancer. The woman said she was attacked by three men, and Nifong has said he hopes to charge a third person soon.

Defense attorneys have strongly proclaimed the players' innocence, often citing DNA tests they said failed to connect the accuser and the lacrosse players tested.

Osborn's filings also included evidence and affidavits supporting a timeline the defense says proves Seligmann wasn't at the party long enough to have committed the assault described by the accuser.

In recent days, the defense has been attacking the accuser's credibility.

Osborn's motions referenced a 1996 rape allegation made by the woman, which did not lead to any charges, and a report she made in 1998, in which she accused her then-husband of threatening to kill her. Osborn's motion said she later failed to appear at a court hearing on the complaint, which was dismissed.

"Their way of trying a case in the media is not to call press conferences, but to simply file motions and court papers that contain outrageous or false statements and assume that people will report them as if they were facts," Nifong said.

Osborn also filed motions seeking to reduce Seligmann's bond, now set at $400,000, to no more than $40,000; to obtain access to the accuser's cell phone records; and to order the state to save all DNA samples.

The case has drawn protests and unwanted attention to the Duke campus. On Monday, Duke police prevented a small group of New Black Panther Party members from coming on campus to protest. Malik Shabazz, the group's national director, said the protesters want to walk silently through campus without causing any disruption.

Nifong, a nearly three-decade veteran of the prosecutor's office, was appointed district attorney last year and is seeking election for the first time in Tuesday's Democratic primary. The winner likely will be the next district attorney since no Republicans are running; if no candidate gets at least 40 percent of the vote, the top two will advance to a May 30 runoff.

Source: AP

[Walter Cronkite]

Reaction slow as police told Duke 'this will blow over'

Duke underestimated the rape allegations against members of the lacrosse team in part because Durham police initially said the accuser "kept changing her story and was not credible,'' according to a university report issued Monday.

The day after the March 13 team party where a 27-year-old black woman claimed she was raped, Durham police told campus officers that "this will blow over,'' the report said. It said that the woman initially told police she was raped by 20 white men, then said she was attacked by three.

Police told the Duke officers that if any charges were filed, "they would be no more than misdemeanors,'' the report said.

Instead, more than a month after the party, a grand jury indicted two members of the highly ranked lacrosse team on charges of rape, kidnapping and sexual assault. District Attorney Mike Nifong has said he hopes to charge a third person.

The report was commissioned by the Duke president and prepared by Julius Chambers, a former chancellor at North Carolina Central University, where the accuser is a student, and William G. Bowen, a former president of Princeton University who is now head of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Their report does not say who at the Durham Police Department cast doubt on the accuser's complaint. But, it said, allowing those comments to shape Duke's thinking "was a major mistake."

Defense attorneys have asked the court to consider the woman's reliability, saying she previously made an allegation of rape that did not lead to any charges.

"The changing of the allegations is entirely consistent with our investigation into her background and our knowledge of the case," said attorney Kirk Osborn, who represents Reade Seligmann, one of the two players charged.

After reviewing a copy of the report, Nifong declined to comment. Durham police spokeswoman Kammie Michael also declined to comment.

The report did say a female Duke police officer tried to calm and reassure the accuser at the hospital where she was taken by police hours after the party. The woman, the Duke officer said, was "crying uncontrollably and visibly shaken ... shaking, crying and upset.'' That behavior, the report said, "doesn't suggest that the case was likely to just 'go away.'''

The statements about the accuser's credibility were part of a major failure of communications between police and several members of Duke's administration, the report said.

The report said Duke President Brodhead did not learn about the incident for a week, and only then by reading about it in the student newspaper. When Brodhead sought more information from Larry Moneta, Duke's vice president for student affairs, he was told "the accusations were not credible and were unlikely to amount to anything,'' the report said.

That was largely the extent of university leaders' knowledge "until a burst of activity on the part of the district attorney and the police and their investigation made us realize that there was potentially a significantly larger story here," Brodhead said.

Brodhead and others did not learn about the racial aspects of the case until March 24 -- "a gap in communications that is extraordinary,'' the report concluded.

The report said Duke's response was also limited by its lack of diversity in senior management; Brodhead and his core advisers are almost all white men.

The case may have been handled better "if a wide array of life histories and perspectives had been brought to bear on what were sensitive and highly charges issues," the report said.

But while Duke's leaders were "much too slow" to understand and respond to the rape allegations, the delay did not represent "any effort to cover up the problems revealed by these events, to deceive anyone, or to play down the seriousness of the issues raised."

Once he had all the facts, Brodhead "provided strong, consistent, and effective leadership," the report said.

Defense attorneys have strongly proclaimed the innocence of the team and the two players charged, sophomores Reade Seligmann, of Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, of Garden City, N.Y.

Source: ESPN.com

[Walter Cronkite]

Defense: DNA tests show no link to Duke lacrosse

A second round of DNA testing in the Duke University lacrosse rape case came back with the same result as the first -- no conclusive match to any member of the team, defense attorneys said Friday.

Attorney Joseph Cheshire, who represents a team captain who has not been charged, said the tests showed genetic material from a "single male source" was found on a vaginal swab taken from the accuser, but that material did not match any of the players.

"In other words, it appears this woman had sex with a male," said Cheshire, who spoke at a news conference with other defense attorneys in the case. "It also appears with certainty it wasn't a Duke lacrosse player."

Cheshire said the testing did find some genetic material from several people on a plastic fingernail found in a bathroom trash can of the house where the team held the March 13 party. He said some of that material had the "same characteristics" -- a link short of a conclusive match -- to some of the players, but not the two who have been charged with rape, kidnapping and sexual assault.

Along with the fingernail, the trash can contained cotton swabs, tissue, toilet paper and other items that would carry the DNA of people who used the bathroom, Cheshire said.

Two members of the team have been charged with raping an exotic dancer hired to perform at the party.

The dancer, a 27-year-old black student at nearby North Carolina Central University, told police she was raped and beaten for a half-hour by three white men at the party. A grand jury has charged sophomores Reade Seligmann, of Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, of Garden City, N.Y., with rape, kidnapping and sexual assault.

Defense attorneys have strongly proclaimed that all the players are innocent, consistently pointing to an initial round of DNA tests they said found no match between the 46 players tested and the accuser.

District Attorney Mike Nifong did not immediately return a call to his home seeking comment Friday night.

After the first round of tests came back from a state crime lab without a match, Nifong said that in 75 to 80 percent of all sexual assault cases, there is no DNA evidence. In those cases, prosecutors had to proceed "the good old-fashioned way. Witnesses got on the stand and told what happened to them," he said last month.

But Stan Goldman, a Loyola Law School professor and former Los Angeles County public defender, said he would be surprised if Nifong went ahead with the case unless "they really have something significant that they are not revealing to us" -- such as a lacrosse player willing to testify he saw a rape.

"There has got to be some really good prosecution explanation as to why the DNA evidence does not exist and why someone else's would be there," Goldman said.

Cheshire said the fact that the players turned over the fingernail shows they had nothing to hide.

"Is that consistent with someone that knowledgeably and knowingly committed a rape?" Cheshire said. "That they would leave fingernails that were ripped off a person in a violent struggle in their trash can after they're told there's an investigation and that police were going to come to their house, and when the police do, they give them the fingernails?"

According to a search warrant executed on March 16, police recovered five fingernails from the house, but it was unclear where those fingernails were found or whether they included the one containing DNA.

"Let's wait and see the fingernails and see if they match up to the way she describes the attack took place," Cheshire said.

Nifong has said he hoped to charge a third person, and he could do so as early as Monday at the next meeting of the Durham County grand jury.

"I'm not going to comment on whether I think it'll be my client or not," Cheshire said. "I hope it is none. It'll simply be accusing another innocent person."

The "single male source" who matched the genetic material found on the vaginal swab take from the victim is named in the report on the second round of DNA tests, which were done at a private lab. Cheshire said the man "is known to the Durham police department" but he declined to give the man's name or comment on his relationship with the accuser.

"There is no indication that this man should have his name dragged through the mud," he said.

Source: ESPN.com

[Walter Cronkite]

Grand jury indicts third Duke player

A grand jury indicted a third member of Duke University's lacrosse team Monday on charges stemming from a woman's allegations she was raped and beaten at a team party earlier this year.

David Evans, a 23-year-old senior and team captain from Bethesda, Md., was indicted on charges of first-degree forcible rape, sexual offense and kidnapping. Two other players were indicted on the same charges last month.

Evans' attorney, Joseph Cheshire, didn't immediately comment on the indictment but told reporters to gather outside the Durham County magistrate's office at 2 p.m. That's where sophomores Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, 19, of Garden City, N.Y., turned themselves in last month following their indictments.

The charges followed a March 13 party at an off-campus house, where a 27-year-old black student at nearby North Carolina Central University told police she was raped and beaten by three white men after she and another woman were hired as exotic dancers.

Evans, who in the past had been cited for a noise ordinance violation and alcohol possession, lived at the house where the party was held.

Defense attorneys have insisted all the players are innocent and have cited DNA tests they say found no conclusive match between any of the team's white players and the accuser.

The allegations against the players led to protests in Durham and drew criticism from national civil rights activists, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who said last month that his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition would pay the woman's college tuition.

Duke cancelled the rest of the lacrosse team's season and accept the resignation of coach Mike Pressler. Duke President Richard Brodhead also initiated a series of internal investigations, one of which concluded administrators were slow to react to the scandal in part because of initial doubts about the accuser's credibility.

At Duke's graduation ceremony over the weekend, some graduates wore Seligmann's and Finnerty's lacrosse jersey numbers on their mortarboard caps. Provost Peter Lange blamed the "sad events and relentless media coverage" of the case for tarnishing the school's image.

Source: ESPN.com

[Walter Cronkite]

Duke women's lacrosse to wear 'innocent' bands

The Duke women's lacrosse team retains strong ties to the men's team currently embroiled in rape allegations.

The women plan to wear sweatbands that say "innocent" when they play Northwestern in the Final Four on Friday in Boston, The Durham Herald-Sun reported Wednesday.

"Obviously we want to win a national championship for ourselves, but definitely also for the university and the men's team," junior Leigh Jester told the paper. "They don't really have a chance to play their season, which is a shame.

"We'd love to bring it home not only for ourselves, but also for them."

The ties go further, too. Mike Pressler, who resigned as men's coach on April 5, spoke to the women's team after practice Tuesday, the paper reported.

"I think his message was a little bit more believing in themselves and looking at the year we had in spite of the difficulties that Duke and the lacrosse program have seen," women's coach Kerstin Kimel told the Herald-Sun. "Our kids have been a real pillar of strength. They haven't let this be a distraction; if anything they've used it to motivate. I think our kids have done a great job of supporting the men's team and the players."

Duke declined to comment to the paper about the sweatbands or Pressler's speech.

Source: ESPN.com

[Walter Cronkite]

Defense Sources: Duke Accuser Gave Conflicting Stories About Alleged Rape

The woman who has accused three members of the Duke University lacrosse team of raping her at an off-campus party told investigators several different stories about the night of the alleged incident, sources close to the defense team representing the players have told FOX News.

The differing accounts are included in the 1,300 pages of evidence delivered to defense lawyers last week by Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong, the sources said.

Nifong had no immediate comment on the information said to be included in the documents. The information also has not been verified by police sources.

Meanwhile, the Durham Herald Sun reported Tuesday that medical records of the 27-year-old accuser suggest she might not have been tested for drugs or alcohol, according to a defense filing Monday. Defense lawyers for suspect Reade Seligmann say they were not given any toxicology reports by Nifong.

Nifong told a local Durham radio station that he turned over all the evidence he has and that he will hand over any new information to the defense when he gets it.

Seligmann, of Essex Falls, N.J., is one of three Duke lacrosse players who have been indicted in connection with the case. Sophomore Collin Finnerty of Garden City, N.Y., and senior David Evans of Bethesda, Md., also have been charged with first-degree charges of forcible rape, sexual offense and kidnapping. All players are proclaiming their innocence.

Regarding the 1,300 pages of evidence, sources told FOX News that the accuser allegedly did not tell the officer who met her at a supermarket after responding to a 911 call that she had been raped. Later, the woman told a doctor at a mental health facility that she had been sexually assaulted. She later denied that claim to a police officer when she arrived at the Duke hospital for care.

At least two sources also said there may be a discrepancy in the number of men the accuser says were involved.

The woman also originally claimed that a second dancer who accompanied her to the party, Kim Roberts, was inside the bathroom during the alleged rape, the sources said. The accuser claims she was assaulted and sodomized in that bathroom for about a half an hour and that she tried to fend off her attackers.

When police asked Roberts whether she was in the room at the time, Roberts reportedly told police, "that's a crock."

Defense sources also say the accuser admitted to having had sexual intercourse with at least three men around the time of the alleged attack. According to those sources, when investigators questioned her after DNA tests on the semen found inside her body did not match any of the Duke players, the accuser gave police the name of her boyfriend and two men who drove her to her dancing engagements.

The drivers say in police statements that they brought the accuser to at least five separate gigs the weekend before the alleged attack, defense sources said.

According to the sources, the papers handed over by Nifong also reveal that the forensic nurse who did a gynecological exam on the accuser did not find abrasions, tears or bleeding in the vaginal area, which is often present in forcible rapes. They say she did find swelling in the vaginal area along with tenderness in the accuser's breasts and lower right quadrant.

Several people described the accuser as being severely impaired on the night of the incident, with one of the first police officers to see her describing her as "passed out drunk." But some have suggested she may have been given a date-rape drug. Nifong apparently hinted at this possibility in a story published in Newsweek earlier this month.

The Durham Herald Sun reported Tuesday that the nurse who filled out a report on the physical exam given to the accuser indicated no toxicology tests were performed, according to the defense motion filed Monday by Seligmann's lawyers.

The lawyers said no toxicology information was contained in the 1,278 pages of data Nifong gave them last week. But if such a report exists, the lawyers said they have a right to see it and asked a judge to force Nifong to turn it over.

Nifong declined to comment to The Herald-Sun on this information.

But he told WRAL radio in Durham: "If there was a toxicology report available, it would've been included in the discovery I handed over to the defense."

Seligmann's attorneys want a judge to order prosecutors in the case to provide any reports "generated from blood, urine or other biological samples" collected from the accuser.

Source: foxnews.com

[Walter Cronkite]

Duke men's lacrosse program to be reinstated

The Duke University men's lacrosse program, which was suspended from play following accusations of rape, will be reinstated next week, ESPN's George Smith reported Friday.

A news conference is expected Monday.

On Friday night, Duke spokesman John Burness denied that the school planned to announce the team would play next season.

Former three-time Duke All-American Kevin Cassese, 25, who served as an assistant Blue Devils coach last season, will run the program pending a national search for a head coach, Newsday reported.

Duke University President Richard H. Brodhead announced on March 28 that the university was suspending future games of the men's lacrosse team until there was a clearer resolution of the legal situation involving team members.

On May 1, a Duke University committee recommended that the lacrosse program be reinstated.

Three Duke lacrosse players -- Reade Seligmann, 20, Collin Finnerty, 19, and co-captain David Evans, 23, -- have been charged with raping a woman hired to dance at a March 13 team party. Coach Mike Pressler resigned shortly after the accusations were first made, ending a 16-year tenure marked by three Atlantic Coast Conference championships and a trip to the 2005 national final.

In an unrelated incident, a member of the team was charged with driving while impaired and possession of marijuana last week in Chapel Hill.

Matthew Peter Wilson, 21, a midfielder, was stopped by Chapel Hill police early the morning of May 24 after he allegedly ran a red light, according to police documents.

Police said Wilson twice registered a blood alcohol level of 0.21 on a breath test, nearly three times the 0.08 legal standard for presumption of impairment in North Carolina.

Police said they found less than half an ounce of marijuana and a glass pipe when they searched Wilson's car after he was arrested.

Wilson is scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 1.

Source: ESPN.com

[Walter Cronkite]

Police report: Duke accuser nervous, changed story

A woman who accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape initially told police she was attacked by five men at a team party and at one point denied she had been raped, according to a police report released Friday by a defense attorney.

Authorities said previously in affidavits that the accuser reported she was raped by three men at a March 13 lacrosse team party where she and another woman were hired to perform as exotic dancers.

Three lacrosse players have been charged with rape, kidnapping and sexual offense in the case. Attorneys for all three players have strongly proclaimed their clients' innocence.

Victims rights advocates say it's not uncommon for an assault victim to have trouble answering questions in the hours immediately after an attack, when they are often emotional and unable to focus on describing what has happened.

A Duke police office described the accuser in the lacrosse case as "crying uncontrollably and visibly shaken" when speaking with her at a hospital hours after the party.

The one-page report, dated March 14, was included in 536 pages of additional evidence prosecutor Mike Nifong handed over to defense attorneys Thursday. It was released by Joseph Cheshire, who represents defendant David Evans.

The defense has not released the entire discovery file, and it not known exactly what evidence Nifong might have, but the prosecutor has given no indication he plans to drop the case.

"You kind of find it hard to believe that this case in this condition can find its way to trial unless the prosecution has something going for it that we just don't know," said Stan Goldman, a Loyola Law School professor and former Los Angeles County public defender. "That's the 64-dollar question. What does he have?"

Evans, 23, of Bethesda, Md.; Collin Finnerty, 19, of Garden City, N.Y.; and Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J. are each free on $400,000 bond. A judge reduced Seligmann's bond to $100,000 during a hearing Thursday. A trial isn't expected before spring 2007.

Source: ESPN.com