Posted on 05/15/2006 7:14:12 AM PDT by pissant
DURHAM - A Durham grand jury is scheduled to meet today, and the session could mean new charges in the investigation of a reported rape at a Duke lacrosse team party.
Two of the team's players were indicted in April on charges of first degree rape, first degree sex offense and first degree kidnapping. They are accused of assaulting an escort service dancer in a bathroom of a house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. Their lawyers say the men are innocent, and lawyers representing dozens of team members say that no sex or assault occurred at the March 13 party.
But the woman says she was attacked by three men, and Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong said he has been working on bringing charges against a third person.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TODAY? If Nifong decides to submit the case, police investigators and possibly other witnesses will try to convince grand jurors in a secret session that the state has probable cause to bring a case forward. Grand jurors will hear only the prosecution's side of the case. The standard required for a true bill of indictment is far lower than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard required for a conviction.
IF INDICTMENTS ARE ISSUED, WHEN WILL THEY BECOME PUBLIC? On April 17, a judge ordered the indictments in the lacrosse case sealed. The names of the players who were indicted were not released until 5 a.m. the next day when the players surrendered at the Durham County jail. If Nifong again requests that the indictments be sealed, the law allows a judge to keep them secret until the person is arrested or appears in court.
WHEN WILL ALL THE EVIDENCE BE REVEALED? State law requires prosecutors to turn over all of their case files to defense lawyers, but nothing requires the evidence to be turned over to the public. In open court hearings, lawyers often discuss some of the evidence, but the state's case may not be revealed until trial. No trial dates have been set. When a report on the DNA testing is complete, Nifong is required by law to turn it over to all 46 members of the lacrosse team who submitted DNA samples.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? The cases against Reade William Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, 19, of Garden City, N.Y., are moving forward. Finnerty has a court date in June. Seligmann is scheduled to appear in court Thursday. His attorney, Kirk Osborn, has filed a series of motions challenging Nifong's handling of the case and asking a judge to bar the prosecutor from further involvement.
I'm going to disagree.
The search warrant for McFadyen's place listed $360 in twenties to be seized. The balance of what had been found at 610.
NiFong certainly thought they robbed her.
Her word was good enough.
Something must have come up that made him drop the charges, and we just don't know about it.
Unless he found out what happened, I can't see him forgetting about the purse and the robbery.
Comment from poster nccu_alumni at ABC's channel 11's discussion forum:
And the award goes to? Dave Evans, for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series...
http://forums.go.com/abclocal/WTVD/thread?threadID=117045
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Who cares what that trash thinks.
All of the analysts agreed that the most one could say about a specific person the alleged third attacker in the Duke rape investigation was that he could not be ruled out, but also could not be definitively ruled in.
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WOW that is some strong DNA evidence. </sarc>.
You're quite right. My daughter carries two different make up bags in her purse. One has a mirror and lipstick. The other is strictly eye makeup.
Maybe finally learning she'd spent 30 unaccounted for minutes unconscious in a car with convicted thief Kim?
Thank you! Correct on the 90% explanation. Also, oral rape is still penetration unless he/they slapped her around the face with "it" instead of penetrating her mouth.
You're assuming that the smaller of the two bags she's seen riffling through in the photo on the back porch is the same one found later in the bathroom. Do we know that?
No, but I see 2 bags, and I assume one is the makeup bag. If they picked up everything and put it in Kim's car, then how did the police get the makeup bag from 610?
I dunno.
My best guess is that it was actually seized from the front yard. The warrant doesn't specify where it was found.
The makeup bag had the AV's ID in it, insted of it being in her purse. Curious.
The alleged rape happened during Duke's Spring Break, when few coeds were on campus. If it wasn't for Spring Break, I doubt they would have hired strippers at all.
And while rape can be about sex, recently in my area a 90 year old women was raped in her home by a 20-something assailant- do you think that was about sex? Rape may not always be about power, but it isn't about sex, either. Had the events that the AV describes actually happened, I would see that as more about anger than sex.
That makes a lot of sense to me. I've been wondering which bag her driver's license and credit cards were in. I recall from her search warrant that police were looking for her "ID" as well at the house. Do you recall if they recovered that? If not, then perhaps while Kim was driving off and Crystal was unconscious/unresponsive, Kim stole the $400 out of her purse and then perhaps discarded Crystal's purse with the ID in it.
Gottlieb spent years working as a domestic violence investigator. He may be empathetic to a woman who looks battered.
Amazingly, the lead investigator Ben Himan has only been a police officer since 2002 and a detective since January. His signature has appeared on all the search warrants. Making this newbie point man makes no sense.
http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/430110.html
#1 on the list of items seized is:
Makeup bad with ID
I think it was probably seized outside the house, and that's why it's listed first. All the bathroom stuff is listed last.
I agree 100%... In Nifong's case as well.. There are way too many connections with him and the "society owes the downtrodden" crowd... ie. his Mrs and his work history after college...
It seems to me that he was doing everything he possibly could to get indictments. His refusal to meet with the defense team is totally bizarre. As if he didn't want to hear any exculpatory evidence that he would be required to present to the GJ.
I know this sounds tin hat, but it appears to me that he knows if he gets the boys to the point of going to trial where anything is possible then that increases the AV's chances of negotiating a buy out.
The sad part of the story other than the false accusations is, I really think the AV has some serious emotional issues, while the rest of these vultures are manipulating, calculating snakes...
Well, the perp got an erection didn't he?
Have you checked the internet lately? People have some twisted sexual turn-ons.
In this Town, they probably do all they can to treat these Northern White Boys as the lowest form of criminal.
When we speak of the nails, where's the chain of custody?
"This is a demonstration of how entrenched the feminist notion that "rape is not about sex, but about power" has become."
With boys/young men that age, its all about sex, not power. Also these kids were all on "The Team" and reasonably good looking young guys. That is honey for most young girls of a comparable age. The idea that this woman was raped just doesn't make sense to me. I'm sure the boys had many more attractive options very easily available.
pattyjo
The problem is that she and others like her have a good shot of making this jury, short of a change of venue. Keep in mind, however, that the new venue cannot be radically different demographically from the original venue.
thanks, I couldn't recall whether they had found that
I just noticed that on the second search warrant item #11 is listed as:
"Any other items that nay constitute a crime."
Pretty broad warant! I didn't think they could be so broad.
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