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.
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.
How pathetic is Time? Time is desperate to spin this in favor of the accuser and against the Duke students to further their hateful, spiteful, racial political agenda. Like most of their work, in this case Time counts on the ignorance of their readers.
The defense says they have Kim on record as saying in an interview that she drove the AV from the house to the Kroger and that the AV was with her in the car the entire time.
Kim's car, as we can hear in the second 911 call tape, is a dark blue (looks black) Honda.
In the photo at 12:41, the car is a dark blue car and looks like a Honda.
You can see someone's arm in the photo at 12:41 helping her in (or in Time's universe, helping her out) of the car.
So is Time now suggesting she is so drunk she needed help getting out of the car at the beginning of the party? (Contrary of course to Kim's version, Bissey's version, and the boys' version).
Time is as cynical as they come in the MSM.
This may cast some doubt on the alibis of those still in attendance after RS left, but it does nothing to his alibi.. And she's 100% sure it was RS...
Let's say the AV left through the back door alone at 12:04ish and fell down then went to the car to sit for a while before going back in for her shoe... are we to believe that Kim sat in the car for over 30 minutes waiting for her and not mention it in her interviews... all the while knowing there were no $100 bills shoved under the BR door....
I gotta ponder that one for a minute...