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.
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