Accuser in Duke lacrosse case wanted money, man says (DukeLax Ping)

Joseph Neff, Benjamin Niolet and Anne Blythe, Staff Writers DURHAM - Four days after she said she was raped, the accuser in the Duke lacrosse case told co-workers at a Hillsborough strip club that she was going to get money from some boys at a Duke party who hadn't paid her, the club's former security manager said.

"She basically said, 'I'm going to get paid by the white boys,' " H.P. Thomas, the former security manager at the Platinum Club, said in an interview Friday. "I said, 'Whatever,' because no one takes her seriously."

On March 14, the woman said she was assaulted and raped by three men at a lacrosse team party that began late on the night of March 13. Three players -- David Evans, 23, of Bethesda, Md.; Collin Finnerty, 20, of Garden City, N.Y.; and Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells N.J. -- have been charged with rape, sexual assault and kidnapping. All three have declared their innocence and called the accusations lies.

Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong declined to comment on Thomas' recollections. Thomas said he had not previously come forward on the advice of lawyers.

Nifong has said in court that nearly a month after the party, the woman was in his office and appeared too traumatized to talk about what had happened to her. Nifong said that throughout the April 11 meeting with Nifong and police investigators, the woman seemed near tears and had trouble making eye contact.

But less than a week after the party, Thomas said, the woman seemed fine, and weeks later, he realized a friend of his had a video of her dancing at the club in the early hours of March 26.

The accuser never gave any indication that the party was a bad time, let alone that she was assaulted or raped, Thomas said.

The News & Observer generally does not identify the complainants in sexual assault cases. The woman could not be located for comment Friday.

On March 17, the woman showed Thomas a hospital bracelet and paperwork. While she talked about being owed money, the accuser never gave any word or indication of being hurt, he said.

"The other girls would have known if something had happened," Thomas said. "If another dancer had been beat up or raped by a bunch of white boys, there would have been a ruckus."

Thomas said dancers must sign in when they take guests into the club's VIP room. He said those sheets show that the woman had signed in March 17 and 18. He said she also danced the following weekend.

The club's owner, Victor Olatoye, said the club's records show the woman was dancing at the club March 23, 24, 25 and into the early hours of March 26. Olatoye has no record of her working the previous weekend.

Olatoye said he had given a sworn statement to an investigator in Nifong's office last month initially saying that he had not seen the woman since February.

That night at the club, Olatoye checked his records and called the investigator back to change his sworn statement.

Thomas said he worked as security manager at the club from January through April. He said he had little to gain by coming forward because of a pending cocaine possession charge. Staff writer Joseph Neff can be reached at 829-4516 or jneff@newsobserver.com.

'Group of 88' faculty hears criticism in wake of lax scandal

Rob Copeland, The Chronicle, 11/7/06 [Well worth posting in full]

What does a social disaster sound like?

Since April 6, when 88 professors, seven departments and seven academic programs sponsored an advertisement in The Chronicle with that tagline, the debate has raged on.

Dubbed the "Group of 88" by the national media and online bloggers, the professors have continued to be a target of criticism seven months after the advertisement ran.

The advertisement listed anonymous quotes describing allegations of racism and sexism at Duke.

Although many professors declined to comment for this article, some said they stand by their statement and believe the advertisement has been misconstrued.

In a piece titled "Shame on Duke's faculty for rush to blame," published Oct. 22, The Arizona Republic columnist Doug MacEachern said the Group of 88 suffered from an "inflated sense of personal morality" in the wake of the scandal.

"Whatever the ultimate judgement in this case, the Duke faculty has acted monstrously," MacEachern wrote. "In service of their personal, hyperpolitical judgements about social oppression, the faculty members proclaimed their indifference to the real guilt or innocence of their own students."

Some professors said the statement reflected the opinion of those who signed it.

"I stand by my right to express my opinion, other than that I don't have anything to say. I think everyone should have the opportunity to express an opinion," said Sherman James, professor of public policy, declining further comment.

The advertisement's content has been widely misinterpreted, said Alice Kaplan, professor of literature and Romance studies and director of graduate studies in literature.

"That statement was about the climate on campus, it wasn't taking a position on the case," Kaplan said. "There's nothing in the statement that says anyone is guilty or innocent."

Criticism has rained in from coast to coast.

In an Oct. 16 New York Magazine article, Kurt Andersen unflatteringly compared one member of the Group of 88 to President George W. Bush.

"The story appalled us good-hearted liberal metropolitans, but absolutely galvanized the loopy left at Duke," Andersen wrote.

From the other end of the political spectrum, William Anderson, an assistant professor of economics at Frostburg State University, has written extensively online about the lacrosse scandal and labeled the Group of 88 as Marxists and leftists.

"These young men represented everything these faculty members despised, and they were not going to permit something as bourgeois as truth stand in the way of their attempt to remake Duke University in their own image," Anderson wrote Oct. 14.

The lacrosse case has exposed the "fraud" of higher education, he said.

"The Duke affair presents the Purely Political State of Being that the elite academies want to impose on everyone else," Anderson wrote. "Professors have come to view their campuses as huge re-education camps."

One of the professors Anderson specifically mentioned was Karla Holloway, a Duke professor of English.

Holloway wrote in an e-mail that misreadings of the advertisement have attracted the most attention.

"It was extraordinarily telling that these respondents displaced the actual content of the ad for the fiction of their own meagerly articulated agendas," she wrote.

She added that she would sign the petition again "in a heartbeat."

Both Kaplan and Holloway said they have received hate mail from strangers.

"The often vicious, frequently racist and generally poorly composed responses I have received speak for themselves," Holloway said.

"Those who cower under the cover of anonymous e-mail and who find their life's blood in producing unending streams of blogged nonsense are probably better left to these subaltern spaces," she added.

One of the bloggers following the case, KC Johnson, told The Chronicle in October that he started writing in reaction to the "inexplicable response" of the University's faculty.

In an Oct. 24 post, Johnson criticized the Group of 88 for remaining silent in light of recent developments.

A professor of history at Brooklyn College, he noted that some sponsors of the advertisement have "meager credentials" and he said that at least one has a pattern of "adopting ideologically extreme positions that fail to stand the test of time."

"Since March 14, nearly 100 of Duke's arts and sciences faculty engaged in rush-to-judgement denunciations of the lacrosse players," Johnson wrote.

Kaplan, though, rejected any postulations about her motives.

"I signed the statement because I care about Duke and I care about the students and the experiences they're having," she said.

[For the record]

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