Duke Lacrosse Accuser Made Previous Report

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.

I keep hearing these TV lawyers say that the photographs do not help the defense and that the cab driver does not help the defense, and I wonder have these people ever been involved in a real criminal prosecution.
My nearly sixteen years as a prosecutor tells me that the photographs and the cab driver's statements help the defense.
__________

Of course the cabby helps the defense. Whether he has perfect memory of who was wearing what or what color a car was is not important, because that was his SECOND call to the house when the strippers were leaving.

What happened during Reade's pick up is not shaky.
Reade also has a nice paper trail; cell phone records, receipts etc.

The pics can be verified by an expert as what time they were actually taken. Besides, even the shady Kim admits Mangum got there after her and it was a little before 12 am.

I do not see an issue with the photos or Reade's alibi.

This is more of the media trying to confuse people so they can hang onto the story of the AV being raped.

There's not going to be a court date

Running in and out today. This morning the "New Black Panthers" are going to "escort" the AV and provide protection.

At a store, tv news "The New Black Panthers" going to settle the town.

At car inspectors, news: "The New Black Panthers are going to Hand out Fliers at Duke to lecture them about the evils of "white privilege"... "and then possibly escort/provide services to the AV".

I knew something was coming down.

I've never seen the Black Panthers, old or new, run so fast from the spotlight they were so craving.

Munchhausen BY PROXY Syndrome, is when a mother breaks her child's bones, or harms them in some way and then makes a big fuss over how her poor child is ill, was hurt in an accident, claims the child is very ill, but she has, in reality, fed them low doses of poison, or some such thing, to make them ill. It's all for attention, FOR THE MOTHER.

It was named for a character in a book, which was later a radio show; the Baron von Munchhausen. At the end of the show, after a wild story, some would tell him that all of that was implausible, crazy, couldn't have happened that way and the Bron would reply :"Vas you der Scharlie?".

Many decades later, an horridly bad movie was made about the Barron.

So, what you're thinking of has a different name, but outside of crazy or delusional, I don't know what to call it.

Family Defends Daughter’s Painful Past
The parents of the alleged victim talk to ESSENCE about their daughter’s medical history, a previous sexual assault and why they believe their daughter isn’t getting a fair shake
By Kristal Brent Zook

Yesterday the pending case against the two Duke University students accused of raping a 27-year-old North Carolina Central student took a new, and some say vicious, turn as defense lawyers for indicted lacrosse players Reade Seligmann, 20, and Collin Finnerty, 20, filed a motion seeking the young woman’s past medical and mental-health records. Lawyers for the two young men charged maintain their clients’ innocence.

But family members immediately went on the offensive about the young woman’s history. The mother of the alleged victim told ESSENCE magazine that her daughter did go away to a hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina, for about a week last year, where she was treated for a “nervous breakdown.” While the accuser’s parents did not say they knew what brought on the breakdown, they did say that their daughter was upset about mounting bills. The mother also told ESSENCE that when her daughter was 17 or 18, she was raped by several men, one of whom was someone she knew. The attack took place in the town of Creedmoor, about 15 miles northeast of Durham, and was a “set up,” according to the accuser’s mother. Although other family members confirmed that the alleged victim reported the incident to police in that jurisdiction, the young woman declined to pursue the case, relatives say out of fear for her safety. Officials from both the Granville county sheriff’s department and the Creedmoor police department said they were unable to locate any records of the incident. They also added that this does not mean that the assault did not occur.

Family members said that after the first alleged assault, the young woman underwent about a year of professional therapy and received a course of prescription medication. Her parents said that they were not aware of any other drug use in their daughter’s past, as defense attorneys have suggested. The woman’s mother told ESSENCE that her daughter, who had lived in the same home with her parents and her two children prior to the March 13 incident, appeared to have recovered after the therapy she had following the incident.

“She’s not crazy,” said her father, responding to what he says has become a smear campaign to damage his daughter’s credibility. “She takes her children to school and picks them up. She works. She goes to school herself.” Her mother and father also maintain that her medical history has no bearing on the pending case.

But as both the defense and the alleged victim’s family gear up for what appears to be an extremely challenging court battle, the accuser herself is still refusing to speak to reporters and has not spoken with civil-rights attorney Willie Gary, despite her family’s urging that she do so. Gary, as first reported by ESSENCE, met with the mother Sunday at a local church in Chapel Hill at the suggestion of the Reverend Jesse Jackson [“Accuser’s Family Meets With Famed Attorney”]. Gary has also spoken with the father by phone on at least two occasions. The parents and an aunt have expressed strong interest in having Gary represent the young woman.

“I declare … I really hope she does,” the mother told ESSENCE yesterday.

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