Posted on 04/18/2006 3:26:57 AM PDT by Mad-Margaret
DURHAM -- A day after a grand jury indicted two Duke University lacrosse players in connection with a reported rape, two men emerged from a sheriff's deputy vehicle and were led, handcuffed, into the magistrates office at the Durham County Jail at 4:54 a.m. today.
The arrests stem from a party that began March 13. The accuser, who is a mother of two, an N.C. Central University student and an escort service dancer, told police March 14 that she was sexually assaulted by three men in a bathroom at an off-campus house shared by three lacrosse team captains. The accuser is black; she said her rapists were white.
Defense lawyers said players maintained that there was no sex at all. They said the accuser concocted the story, that she was drunk and injured late March 13 when she arrived at the three-bedroom house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd.
"... Two young men have been charged with crimes they did not commit. This is a tragedy," Bob Ekstrand, who represents team players, said Monday in a prepared statement. "For the two young men, an ordeal lies ahead. They do not face it alone; they face it with the love of family and friends and strengthened by the truth. They are both innocent."
Superior Court Judge Ronald Stephens sealed a manila envelope containing the indictments shortly after the grand jury finished its business Monday. The judge cited a state law that requires everyone involved in a case, including witnesses, to keep the indictment secret until a suspect is arrested.
Last month, a judge ordered DNA tests on the team's 46 white players; he excluded the only black team member. The players' attorneys say the tests showed none of the players' genetic material on or in the woman.
Nifong, bolstered by a medical exam that found injuries on the woman consistent with sexual assault, says he is confident that she was assaulted in the university-owned house. Nifong said last week at a forum at NCCU that the accuser identified at least one of her attackers.
Until Sunday night, the only other witness, the second woman hired to dance at the party, had remained silent. In television interviews, she told her story.
The woman's attorney, Mark Simeon of Durham, declined Monday to make her available for an interview. She spoke on the MSNBC cable news network, which did not identify her and showed her in silhouette. Simeon confirmed that it was his client on MSNBC.
The woman told MSNBC that she did not witness a rape and does not know whether one occurred.
The woman said she arrived thinking that she would be dancing at a bachelor party of 15 people. She was not expecting a party of lacrosse players, many of whom she said were in a drunken stupor. The woman said she was infuriated to learn that some players photographed her dancing.
The accuser did not appear to be on drugs or to have been drinking when she arrived, the second dancer said. She was "absolutely fine and in control of herself."
When the accuser left, less than an hour after she arrived, she was incoherent and stumbling, the second dancer said.
"She couldn't really walk on her own," the woman said. "She really couldn't get her thoughts together enough to answer any questions. ... She was a different person than I met at the beginning."
The second woman said she was the person who called 911 as the party was breaking up, to complain that some lacrosse players had used racial slurs. "The boys hollered the 'N' word," she said. "I was upset and called 911."
She said she pretended to be a passer-by because she didn't want people in her life to know about her job as an escort service dancer.
It is unclear how that woman's story would affect the case. Players' attorneys have said she would only help them. By day's end Monday, Nifong left without talking to reporters; it remains unclear what evidence he has.
Throughout Monday, there were many more reporters on the sixth floor of the courthouse than the 18 members of the grand jury panel. Reporters tracked the district attorney's movements in minute detail. Just after noon, Nifong emerged from his office and walked across the hallway to the bathroom.
Reporters surrounded the bathroom door in a crowd that included five television cameras, three still photographers, sound men with boom microphones and at least a dozen print reporters. At the sound of flushing, the group tensed, raised cameras and prepared. Nifong did not emerge with news.
"I no longer get to go anywhere in my community without people knowing who I am," said Nifong, who faces two challengers in a primary election May 2. Staff writer Anne Blythe can be reached at 932-8741 or ablythe@newsobserver.com.
It would not have been difficult for Mangum to learn about this - not difficult at all, with some help from some well-meaning race-baiters. Then all she had to do is memorize the face attached to the name on the team roster.
Her story becomes more believable if she "identifies" someone who is already in trouble for an assault type of crime.
>>Ohhh... this is gonna get so nasty.
One of the boys was involved in that homosexual incident in Washington.
http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/425722.html<<
>>On the same day Duke University lacrosse player Collin H. Finnerty was ordered to provide DNA samples in a rape investigation, he was in Washington to face charges that he assaulted a man last fall.<<
Well, I think the odds he is guilty here too just went up.
>>what we have here is To Kill a Mockingbird- 2006.
I'm going to use that.
If they don't indict at least one white guy, the city will be burnt to the ground. It follows like a script in a movie.
I think "gay-bashing incident" might cause a little less confusion.
These boys had not a clue when they sponsored this party, nor do they currenty have no idea what the firestorm has been, and will be, about this case. Their guilt or innocnece of the charged crime will become secondary -- if this case goes forward, it will be a zoo of lawyers, Jesse Jackson and his cohorts, radical feminists, tabloids and cable news reporters, and a whole host of leftists trying to make hay out of it.
It's gonna be very interesting to learn exactly how she identified them. I remember reading one report last week that there was a video made of the procedure, but that the prosecutor would not release it to the defense attorneys.
They had 40 some-odd kids to choose from. Anyone think that maybe this guy was chosen for a reason?
Well, he's going to have to now. Nifong best fire up his copy machine.
Certainly possible.
(He's from the town I grew up in, but I don't believe I know the family.)
Lol, you're correct...
IF even the flimsiest evidence surfaces, FA Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Johnny Cochran will ALL be holding a giant press conference then interviewed by Couric, King, Matthews, Greta, Whoraldo, etal.
Anyone know how soon after the alleged rape she made the IDs?
Of course, but the fact still remains, no DNA found, so where do you go for you're rape case? This prosecutor is really playing with fire, because he can't go after anything else when the woman claimed she was raped, he has to prove that charge, and without the DNA, he's hasn't got a convincing way to prove it, and he knows it!
[i]One of the boys was involved in that homosexual incident in Washington.[/i]
I think "gay-bashing incident" might cause a little less confusion.
____________
You're right. But it's early and I need coffee.
Now it's a hate crime...
Fine, where's his DNA on the woman?
Thanks for the ping. As another freeper said on another thread, if the woman had mentioned that she'd been drugged and raped with a broom handle, a broom and any drugs in the house would have been mentioned in the list of items the police report of items seized. And they were not.
What happened to the charge of largency?
"It's gonna be very interesting to learn exactly how she identified them. I remember reading one report last week that there was a video made of the procedure, but that the prosecutor would not release it to the defense attorneys."
Yes, any kind of (hypothetical) date rape drug makes that difficult.
I wouldn't want to be anywhere near this case - not a juror, judge or lawyer....
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