Duke Lacrosse Accuser Made Previous Report

AP ^ | Apr 27 2006 | AARON BEARD

[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.

[darbymcgill]

Are you saying you believe the times on the accuser's photos appear to be altered?

No, and yes...

If you look closely at the photos that have been released, they are cropped and pasted on top of some type of back ground... The times supposedly taken from the actual photos are photoshopped on top of the background / actual picture...

It is appears to me that the defense has in some cases significantly altered the photos prior to their release to only give the appearances they wish to be given...

If these photos were indeed taken with a cellphone, those photos can be retrieved from Nextel, AT&T or whomever..

Unless the photos were transmitted from one cell phone to the other or emailed to an Internet address, the photos would have never seen the cellular provider... The camera phones I have used will take a picture regardless of whether or not you are in an active cell....

As far as getting the photos printed, bluetooth would bypass the cellular networks as well....

[toldyou]

"Believe it or not I remember where they are posted."

Okay, I'll make you a deal. I'll pay our way to Las Vegas/ Atlantic City. You'll play blackjack, and we'll split the money.....you should count cards very well!

[JLS]

Unless the photos were transmitted from one cell phone to the other or emailed to an Internet address, the photos would have never seen the cellular provider... The camera phones I have used will take a picture regardless of whether or not you are in an active cell....

As far as getting the photos printed, bluetooth would bypass the cellular networks as well....
_______________________________________________________

But if you take a picture out of cell tower range, will it have a time stamp on it? Also this may well be a moot point since the house in question likely is in cell tower range.

Additionally if you take a picture and transmit it, will it have the time stamp of when it was taken or when it was sent?

Finally, I know little of bluetooth, but how does it bypass cell transmision? Can you hook a cell phone to your computer and just print?

[Dukie07]

You'll have to ask them, I haven't a clue.

[Howlin]

Sounds like my rant. I was worried you thought I was a rape Nazi. Feel free to rant anytime, LOL!

We'll all beginning to babble.......

[darbymcgill]

Where's the video? :)

I'm almost positive... 90% maybe ;) that early on before I was paying very much attention that the portion of the video involving the "how about this" comment was shown on one of the cable channels...

but a lot of stuff has disappeared from the Internet concerning this case, many dead links nowadays... I've been building my own stash instead of relying on links anymore

[darbymcgill]

But if you take a picture out of cell tower range, will it have a time stamp on it?

The way I understand it, the cell phone keeps the time until the next time it gets blasted out from the towers...

Additionally if you take a picture and transmit it, will it have the time stamp of when it was taken or when it was sent?

When a picture is taken with a camera phone and saved, all of the meta data is stored in the same file with the picture...

Finally, I know little of bluetooth, but how does it bypass cell transmission? Can you hook a cell phone to your computer and just print?

If you see people walking around with those odd ear pieces that allow them to talk on their cell phone without a cord, most if not all use bluetooth to talk to the cell phone... Kinda like infrared sorta...

Many computer nowadays and some printers use bluetooth and can talk to your a cell phone... these do not use the cellular network... There are also cables that will allow you to directly connect your cell phone to your computer..

[snarkytart]

The picture is time stamped 12:41. It shows a woman -- presumed to be Crystal -- with her leg sticking out of a dark colored car. An arm -- presumed to be of one of the players -- appears to be assisting Crystal. The car is dark.

At 1:20, we know that the Kroger security guard called 911 and refers to a dark car that an intoxicated woman refuses to leave. Kim claims that it's her dark car.

The cabbie was obviously mistaken about the color of the car that departed Buchanan Street.

We still don't know who drove Crystal to the house and what color the arrival car was.
________________

I am sure the cabby wasn't taking notes on everything going on outside his cab on that second pick up.
Apparently Kim was arguing outside with some of the guys, Mangum was being shuffled to Kim's car, guys were filing out of the house, it was dark out.
Maybe a white car was parked in front or behind Kim's car.
.


It still does nothing to Reade's paper trail alibi.

I am interesting in Finnerity's alibi.
We have not heard much from his camp on what they have.
I guess that's smart considering how dissected the photos have become.

[Carling]

Greta: The pic isn't insignificant. It would take a lot more planning to doctor the photo but if it's a pic of her arriving vs. departing, it's not an insignificant matter. The defense is leaning heavily on the timeline.

That's funny because I was unaware of the DA/Mangum actually having a timeline of how the 'crime' occurred. This seems like more than a minor detail, eh?

[darbymcgill]

This seems like more than a minor detail, eh?

Try this on for minor details... The photo in question, 12:41 has been described by Abrams (he's supposedly seen the originals) as showing the oowie on the AV's leg that occurred when she fell down the steps..

But the photo released by the defense has clearly been alterd to removed evidence of the oowie... The conspirators are falling all over themselves trying to discredit photos that are obviously not the originals..

[Howlin]

But the photo released by the defense has clearly been alterd to removed evidence of the oowie...

Why would they do that?

[darbymcgill]

Why would they do that?

good question...

I first noticed it when I was zoomed in on the pic of the AV at the top of the porch... I could see how her face was blurred and noticed on her left upper arm and other parts of her arm the same blurs... It also looked like something on her purse had been blurred..

When I heard Abrams the other night talking about the photo of the boy helping the AV in the car he said you could see the injuries... When I zoomed in to see for myself, I could see a couple places on her leg that looked blurred as well...

My guess is the defense is trying to control what's being seen and discussed... Why else would they not release the rest of the photos and the entire video?

[JLS]

The defense would have removed the skinned knees from the photo of the woman because they did not want the photos used against their clients. Were the pre-existing injuries shown, someone, probably many someones, would have published the pictures with or without the timestamps and said look at the horrible injuries the Duke Lacrosse team inflicted on this poor woman.

And you well know that many of the great uniformed would have swallowed that hook, line and sinker. They wanted to show the woman leaving and not unhappy. They wanted to establish that one defended did not have time to do anything. They did not want those photos misused against their clients.

[darbymcgill]

Why would they do that?

For all we know they are trying to trap the government, since they refused to look at the originals when offered...

[Ken H]

It still does nothing to Reade's paper trail alibi.

Agree. This business with the time stamp and the cabbie is a manufactured controversy. Those photos are exactly what the defense says they are.

[olrtex]

Abigail Adams? That's a joke, right? She was born about 50 years after the Salem trials!

[snarkytart]

Agreed. I think the defense wanted to give out as little info in the photos so Nifong could not rearrange the story(again) to fit what the pics show.

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

<< I could see how her face was blurred and noticed on her left upper arm and other parts of her arm the same blurs... >>

Probably these are tattoos, which have been blurred out so that the identity of the AV is concealed. The way young people are these days, the AV very likely has at least a few tattoos in various places.

You'll notice the photo of the car has been cropped so that the license plate does not appear, probbly for the same reason, so as not to identify Kim (whose identity was still unknown when the photos were publicly released). Kim's head is also blurred in that photo.

You're right in that the time stamps are a later add-on to the original photos. I learned in one of the news reports that the camera was not using the setting that causes the date/time to appear in the photo itself, but nevertheless the camera still tracks the date and time for each photo in the "megadata."

The defense had a forensic expert confirm that the megadata was not tampered with, and obviously the defense added the time stamps themselves on the photos before releasing them. You'll notice they did NOT add a time stamp on the photo of just the back porch.

[Jezebelle]

What did he have to investigate? She made an allegation, that's all. She provided no information for the cops to follow up with. The alleged event was three years old at the time. It's not as though the cops could go to a specific place, question people, neighbors, look for forensic evidence, etc., verify alibis - nothing.

There was no case without her cooperation. There was no criminal act established. Perhaps unlike Nifong, they don't choose to make it up as they go along. They had no grounds for an investigation without her follow-up and no basis to interroagte anybody. They didn't even have a specific date or address to start with.

Do you think the police should have spread the allegation around town and made a stink about it? I think that would be irresponsible. Maybe the police chief didn't want to smear the young men until he had something concrete to work with. An allegation of an event three years beforehand with no physical evidence, no medical exam, no clothing, weapons, nothing to sieze, and no specific date or address of the alleged event means there was absolutely nowhere to go with it until she provided more information, which she didn't. I'm surprised they even had the couple sheets of papaer they did have because this was ten years ago.

[Peach]

That's a possibility, Alia. Or he's just mistaken on the color of the car.

The panel was VERY confused tonight and neither Greta nor the other guests could remember what color car Kim was driving.