Posted on 04/25/2006 2:34:48 AM PDT by abb
DURHAM - District Attorney Mike Nifong plans to reinstate misdemeanor charges against a half-dozen Duke lacrosse players, saying a March 13 party where a woman reported a rape broke the deals that the players made with prosecutors.
Nifong's decision could affect players who, before the party, had entered agreements in which prosecutors would dismiss the cases if the players performed community service and stayed out of trouble for six months or a year. Among the first to have his charges reinstated was David Evans, one of the team captains who lived at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., the site of the party in which lacrosse players hired two women from escort services to dance. One of the women told police that she was raped by three men in a bathroom.
Two players, Collin Finnerty, 19, and Reade William Seligmann, 20, were charged last week with first-degree rape, first-degree sex offense and first-degree kidnapping. Their attorneys say the men are innocent.
On Monday, an attorney for Seligmann filed a motion seeking information that would help attack the credibility of the woman, the only person, according to the defense filing, who says a rape occurred. The motion seeks information about the woman, including criminal charges, mental and emotional problems the woman has suffered as well as social services, probation, child protective services and victim's advocacy records.
Today, Finnerty is due in a Washington court where prosecutors in an assault charge are considering whether to revoke a deferred prosecution agreement similar to those affecting other players in Durham.
According to court records, 16 players were charged in the past three years with misdemeanor charges in Durham including noise violations, public urination and alcohol violations. The deals placed the men on probation for either six months or a year.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsobserver.com ...
I wanna know when Crystal's charges are going to be re-instated to felonies instead of all misdemeanors.....since she was 3 sheets to the wind in the Kroger parking lot.....
Slap yourself...she made a deal with the DA....
Seems like the news is getting a little scarce..everybody is clamming up....
I would like to see the details of that deal.... ;)
The perfect storm of race, class, and sex makes the alleged Duke rape tale perfect fodder for the ‘justice’-obsessed media
By: MARK JURKOWITZ
4/26/2006 5:47:03 PM
Once the sensational Duke University rape case — with its irresistible brew of race, class, and sex — triggered the predictable media circus, an equally predictable chorus of earnest-sounding criticism began to roll in.
“This is gonna end up in the Ringling Brothers Hall of fame,” asserted attorney Avery Friedman as he pontificated about the legal issues on CNN.
“We get high-profile cases on a relatively regular basis,” Court TV anchor Catherine Crier tells the Phoenix. “And each time, the media onslaught is worse than the last.”
A blog called the Maverick Conservative wonders “how we got into this thing of trying cases in the media.... You should not pay any attention to these people either — the media, the lawyers ... etc. It is all noise — often evil noise.”
Despite that plea, members of the blogosphere — like everyone else — have been busy choosing sides since details of this story started emerging in March.
That a upper tier college like Duke washes its hands of student behaviour like this, or worse -- going back to the Animal House days, but not much before those years, and even not as big then -- is a factor to liability, imo. And I bet that at some point those young near-men and slightly more worn ladies of the drunken nights take on a swashbucking legal team (to use a metaphor from the last scenes of AH) and take a run those ivy ramparts, major endowments and deep pockets a major U like Duke has.
Add "and got the hard consquences" to that and you have a genuine trifecta!
04/26/06 -- DURHAM) - Defense lawyers and Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong kept quiet Wednesday as the investigation into an alleged off-campus rape of an exotic dancer slowed.
Both sides are still waiting for a second round of results from DNA testing. Two lacrosse players are charged and prosecutors expect to arrest a third player soon. Students on and off campus are trying to celebrate the last day of class, but they are partying in the shadow of the lacrosse scandal that has put Duke in the national spotlight.
With big parties planned at various locations, students know police will be watching closely.
"Hopefully, people will take caution to what happened before and decide to make wise choices in their decision," said Duke student Morgan McGhee.
“The media is always used,” says Crier. “The question is, are we being manipulated?”
Crier has a lot of nerve saying that...talk about manipulation, the shows I've seen with her, she has already tried and convicted them.....but that was before Kim started talking, so maybe she has changed her opinion of those two boys..
Exclusive: While meeting for the first time with investigators, the cabbie reveals details that cast doubt on a key to the defense's timeline alibi
By GREG FULTON AND SIOBHAN MORRISSEY
Posted Wednesday, Apr. 26, 2006
The same Durham area taxi driver cited as an alibi witness for accused Duke university lacrosse player Reade Seligmann may end up hurting some aspects of the defense's argument that no rape at all occurred at the off campus party that night. Called in by investigators in the Duke rape case for the first time Tuesday, taxi driver Moez Mostafa told TIME in an exclusive interview, he stated he saw exotic dancer Kim Roberts exchange angry words with lacrosse players, enter "an old white car" and speed away from the scene. While Mostafa told Durham police detective and lead case investigator Benjamin Himan he could not swear a second dancer, who is accusing players of rape, was already in the car, it’s clear from a subsequent 911 call and police dispatch transcript call that the two women were together.
Using Mostafa’s statement, prosecutors are certain to attack what has become a very public set of alibis for the defense — the series of allegedly time stamped photos taken by players the night of the party, some of which have been leaked to the media. Seligmann, 20, and teammate Collin Finnerty, 19, have been charged with rape in the case. Finnerty will stand trial in July in Washington, DC on an unrelated assault charge, a judge there ruled this week.
The crucial photo was taken, defense sources say, at approximately 12:41 a.m., and shows the accuser calmly being helped into a car to leave the party. Taken together with other time- stamped photos from earlier in the evening, it is crucial to the defense argument that there was not enough time that night for a rape to occur. In fact, prosecutors will argue, that photo actually shows the accuser being dropped off at the party, not leaving it, and that it was taken well before midnight. In that photo, the accuser is shown in a black or dark-colored car, which matches a description of the car defense and prosecution sources say dropped her off at the party. The person in the driver seat of that car is not Kim Roberts, whom prosecutors will argue drove the accuser away from the party after the alleged rape.
Prints taken from digital cell phone cameras have time stamps, but can be altered, according to digital photography experts. Only the cameras themselves have true embedded time data to correspond with photos taken. "If the prosecutor can discredit that photo, or one photo, their meaning are all suspect," another lawyer in Durham says.
But one defense attorney scoffed at the notion the photo's time stamp was altered or that prosecutors could argue confusion over the two cars. "If it doesn't come out before the trial, if there is a trial,irrefutable evidence will show the photo is correct and the navy blue car is what matters."
"Thank God they call me," Mostafa told TIME of his meeting at the Durham Police Department. "I don’t want to look like I’m on the side of the defense only. I want to look like I’m an honest person." Mostafa said he told investigators (who would not comment on the interview or any aspect of the case) that he does believe it was Reade Seligmann, and another unknown player, that he picked up at the party house at 12:19 a.m. on the morning of March 14. He told investigators he dropped the pair off at 12:40 a.m. at a dorm on campus, after making several stops. Mostafa said he returned to the house at 12:50 a.m. to pick up four more players, whose identifies are unknown, around the same time he claims to have seen Kim Roberts get into the white car. MORE
With all the publicity surrounding the rape case, the university is apparently concerned that it will lose some prospective freshmen. TIME has obtained a letter to Duke alumni dated Wednesday, April 26, from Dean of Admissions Christoph Guttentag beseeching alumni to encourage accepted incoming freshmen to choose Duke. The letter, say alumni, is unprecedented, and states, "I believe that a final contact from one of our alumni to an admitted student…who have not yet responded to our offer of admission…might make the difference in having a student choose Duke."
Apr 26, 2006 Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - There's been an almost endless stream of news stories and public debate about rape charges against some members of Duke's lacrosse team. That furor has been hard on some people who have nothing to do with the case.
The Duke University Women's Center has been flooded with calls from sexual assault victims who want help in coping with the painful memories that have been reawakened.
Experts on sexual assault high profile rape cases often have that effect -- and it's NOT necessarily a bad thing. Scott Berkowitz is founder and president of the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network -- the nation's largest advocacy group for sexual assault victims.
Berkowitz says some people coming forward now may never have gotten help before. He says, in the long run, a case like this will make it easier for victims to talk about what happened to them.
So did I JLS!
By AARON BEARD AP Sports Writer
DURHAM, N.C. -- When Greg Gosnell talks about attending Duke University as a freshman next fall, the kids at his high school outside Washington make jokes about lacrosse. Even his dentist gave him a hard time about the college he chose.
But the 18-year-old from Potomac, Md., said he is not concerned about allegations that members of Duke's lacrosse team raped a stripper at a team party.
Like many of the 200 of so prospective students visiting the campus Monday, he said he and his parents have decided it is not something to worry about.
"Of course, they had opinions about how it was handled," said Gosnell, who won early admission to Duke. "But at no point were they seriously doubting my application to the school. It was only a few people who may have done this. You can't judge the entire school."
More than 19,000 high school students applied to Duke for next fall, and the highly selective university offered only about 3,800 a spot in the freshman class. At 19 percent, it was the lowest acceptance rate since Duke began keeping track in the 1950s.
The university expects 1,665 to enroll this fall. About 900 prospective students visited the campus during four Blue Devil Days held this month. The final such day was Monday.
Of the 470 students who won early admission to Duke, only one asked to take "another look," said Christoph Guttentag, dean of undergraduate admissions. But Guttentag said has not heard anything else from that student, and about 200 other high school seniors have already given Duke a yes-or-no answer. The deadline is May 1.
"When I look at all the responses we've received, there is nothing that's dramatically different from last year," Guttentag said.
School officials mentioned the allegations briefly during the Blue Devil Days welcome sessions, said Susan Coon, Duke assistant director of admissions. She said few have asked directly about the issue during the question-and-answer sessions with the university's vice president of student affairs that end the day.
Judy Hingle, director of professional development at the National Association for College Admission Counseling, said prospective students should judge the school primarily on academics.
"Something like this could happen at any campus at any time, in reality," Hingle said. "This one just got a lot of press."
Lincoln Foran, an 18-year-old visiting from New York, said his college choice has come down to Duke and the University of Virginia.
"I've seen the articles about it," Foran said. "My impression is it shows the relationship between Duke and Durham is not the best, but at least the university is taking it seriously and trying to fix it."
Rachel Winchester, 18, of Lexington, Ky., said the rape allegations did not affect her desire to enroll at Duke. Her father, Tim, said they decided before Rachel was accepted that the issue was irrelevant. He said lots of school have athletic scandals, and he does not believe this one reflects on the safety of Duke's campus.
"I don't for a minute think there are roving bands of rabid lacrosse players," Tim Winchester said. "We just decided if this was where she wanted to come, this shouldn't hold her back."
Dark blue.
And my sentences work, because I write them to get into people's minds. I do so for love of a real converstaion, and not just idle chatter. Patent english grammar is deadsome in a way -- strong writers break rules. Call it super-charging. The reaction drawn so far is one measure.
More importantly, if the cabdriver helps establish Reade Seligmann's alibi and/or Colin Finnerty's alibi holds, then what happens later is not that significant since the D.A. must prove that Seligmann and Finnerty (together with John Doe #3) sexually assaulted the complainant -- since she has made a 100% certainty identification of Seligmann and Finnerty. There is virtually no wiggle room for the D.A. to charge three other party-goers.
Duke's Ivy League swingingness wasn't broken a beat it seems. They still had that in the last few days -- at least there's been a mention of it on thread -- "Senior Pub Crawl". Lesson ain't a'learned, so to speak.
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