Posted on 04/27/2006 4:27:11 PM PDT by Conservative Coulter Fan
The woman who says she was raped by three members of Duke's lacrosse team also told police 10 years ago she was raped by three men, filing a 1996 complaint claiming she had been assaulted three years earlier when she was 14. Authorities in nearby Creedmoor said Thursday that none of the men named in the decade-old report was ever charged but they didn't have details why. A phone number for the accuser has been disconnected and her family declined to comment to The Associated Press. But relatives told Essence magazine in an online story this week that the woman declined to pursue the case out of fear for her safety. The existence of the report surprised defense attorneys, one of whom has sought information about the accuser's past for use in attacking her credibility. "That's the very first I've heard of that," said Bill Cotter, the attorney for indicted lacrosse player Collin Finnerty, who along with fellow Duke sophomore Reade Seligmann is charged with first-degree rape, kidnapping and sexual assault. He declined additional comment. Attorneys for Seligmann asked the court this week to order the state to turn over the accuser's medical, legal and education records, and hold a pretrial hearing to "determine if the complaining witness is even credible enough to provide reliable testimony." The accuser, a 27-year-old student at North Carolina Central University in Durham, told police she was hired to perform as a stripper at a March 13 party, where she was raped by three men. According to the Creedmoor police report in August 1996, when the woman was 18, she told officers she was raped and beaten by three men "for a continual time" in 1993, when she was 14. She told police she was attacked at an "unspecified location" on a street in Creedmoor, a town 15 miles northeast of Durham. The report lists the names of the three men, but no other details. Creedmoor police Chief Ted Pollard said Thursday he had no recollection of the report, and his staff has been unable to find any additional information about it. Durham police Officer Brian Bishop, who interviewed the accuser in 1996 while working on the Creedmoor force, said Thursday he had a vague recollection of the report but couldn't remember any details. When asked about the accuser's previous report of rape, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong declined to comment. Before Seligmann and Finnerty were indicted, attorneys for the players pointed to the accuser's criminal history when answering questions about their clients' legal troubles. The woman pleaded guilty to several misdemeanors in 2002.
BTW, if it was up to me, I'd make sure the TV cameras were as far away from any student areas as they could be. After all, TV time is what this is all about for those folks.
Nifong needs to hire some new research attorneys. Longstanding North Carolina case law states that the rape shield law only excludes the actual sexual history of the complainant. It does not exclude prior false allegations. See State v. McCarroll, 109 N.C.App. 574, 578 (1982), and State v. Bacon, 58 N.C.App. 150, 153 (1982).
I wonder if we could take count of how many lives she's destroyed or damaged? I've never seen anything quite like it. Even the Tawana story didn't devastate the community or a University's reputation.
I guarantee you - if the NBPP said they were going to try to march through the BC campus they'd be told in no uncertain terms to forgettaboutit.
The minute all those reporters showed up at BC to try to interview Colin's friends the BC police escorted them directly off the campus.
Duke is handle this all wrong. They're going to suffer for it.
One of Abrams' guests said that earlier accusation had to be proven to be false before it could be admitted in court. Could it not be admitted to show her pattern of making accusations of rape...and w/the same details?
Brodhead's totally unnecessay acquiescence to this hate group has put Duke students in danger and has compromised the very institution and campus that he is supposed to protect and defend.
She wasn't charged with filing a false police report so there's no evidence that the report is false...only that she did not pursue it.....and neither did the state.
Brodhead suspended a student for his email, yet ye's allowing Blank Panthers on campus in the name of "Freedom of Speech"?????
".....Nifong said North Carolina's rape shield law lists "narrowly defined categories" under which evidence of an accuser's past sexual history is allowed as evidence."
I DO believe this is correct! Perhaps Nifong hasn't read NC's rape-shield law.....
" (b) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the sexual behavior of the complainant is irrelevant to any issue in the prosecution unless such behavior:
(4) Is evidence of sexual behavior offered as the basis of expert psychological or psychiatric opinion that the complainant fantasized or invented the act or acts charged.
snipped from:
North Carolinas Rape Shield Law (Rule 412)
CHAPTER 8C. EVIDENCE CODE
ARTICLE 4. RELEVANCY AND ITS LIMITS
http://www.wfu.edu/~chesner/Evidence/Linked%20Files/Additional%20Assigned%20Readings/North.Carolina.Rape.Shield.doc
No. It is the fact that the prior accusation is false which makes it relevant.
Yes, it does appear that she has caused them a great deal of difficulty in her 27 years. Yes, no doubt they do love their daughter and their grandchildren. So, if that is true, then why don't they just cool it, stop talking to every reporter that puts a microphone in front of them. They have not done their daughter or their grandchildren any favors by speaking out, they've only fueled rumors or helped create new ones. If that DA was not such an incompetant fool he would have told them to be quiet.
My mother just told me that she heard the mother explain that she and her daughter deliberately decided not to tell the father because they were afraid he'd kill the boys and then he'd be in jail.
Okay, that's not funny. Why am I laughing? Seriously, how many people lost their lives in the melee?
I can understand her not pursuing the case if it was a false charge, but I don't see fear as being a reason. I can understand a young girl being afraid to report a rape (if it actually happened), but she got over her fear long enough to accuse them three years later and then didn't pursue it. Just doesn't make sense!
I think your statement should wait to be made until Monday, with all due respect. Now, if you use "may" instead of "has", then I agree.
Fat chance.
I agree 100 percent. It's pandering.
They couldn't pursue it without her full statement of times, events, circumstances, etc.. There would be no other evidence to gather unless and until they had a full statement from her.
That seldoms work. Brodhead needs to take a stand.
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