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.

[I want to know]

Yep this is probably going to be another bombshell.

I tend to agree. But I wonder what good this information will do for the defense. The talking heads are saying that a jury will never see it (assuming this case goes to court) due to rape shield laws.

[LK44-40]

(We should probably tell lurkers who may not know this history that a black militant communist group held a demonstration in Greensboro, NC two or three decades ago. They were met by alleged KKKers. A good handful of the black militant commies were carried away in body bags. I don't believe any of the shooters were ever caught.)

[cherry]

"I'm just trying to wait until the facts are in to "rush to judgement" in your terms. "

I agree....this whole case is a mess and its all because of the arrogant DA.....

the DA is supposed to represent ALL the people....not just someone accusing others....

he didn't do that...he made a media mockery of this and where he should have used prosecutorial discretion, he instead jumped head first with the cameras running....

so what if this woman was really raped?....what if it did really happen........if she was, she was thrown to the lions by the DA.....the DA did nothing to protect her, to shield her, to try to understand her story, to persuade her that perhaps her story did not hold water......

he didn't protect the college men and he didn't protect a possible victim....

[Alia]

How nice of the family to share their bi-polar issues with us. It's a social disease communicable by the MSM./sarc.

[JLS]

This case has plenty of information available to conclude that there is no truth whatsoever to what Crystal Mangum is alleging.
_________________________________________________

And he did not even need enough information to know what she said was false. If he were a decent prosecutor, all he needed was to know was that he could not make a case beyond a reasonable doubt. That was also his ethical obligation.

But you are confusing yourself by assuming Nifong had anything other than political calculations in mind.

[toldyou]

Love your screen name. Your little dude is adorable! Two now...getting into everything and having temper tantrums?

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

LOL! Wonder who will come out of the shower?

[cherry]

once again, sink...you need to be reminded that there was blood from her on him, that he admitted after much denying that something did indeed happen,, and don't forget about the oh so silent little settlement that she recieved....

trying to compare a woman with a dubious past and a dubious profession with a much younger college woman working a legit job is a stretch, but not for you, I am sure.....since you seem to place all women in one category....

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

The talking heads are saying that a jury will never see it (assuming this case goes to court) due to rape shield laws.

The men involved will undoubtedly be identified soon.

The men may come out and defend themselves by making statements to reporters denying any rape occurred.

If the men are willing to swear to that, then that could give the defense their opening, to argue that the prior accusation and the current denials should come in as probative of credibility.

[Carolinamom]

Dan Abrams' "She's a piece of work" could very easily have been "She's a piece at work."

Have Rita's 'sources' dried up about the identity of the boyfriend?

[noblejones]

>>
To be gang-raped TWICE in 10 years is getting into "planets aligning" territory.
<<

To be fair, remember the Bell Curve: trillion-to-one events DO happen.

Throw in all the other detritus in this case and it seems dead certain this ain't it, though.

[ozaukeemom]

I was just thinking the same thing. :)

[I want to know]

That could be. Of course her subsequent affair with a man during her Navy enlistment sure threw her husband off that trail!

[cherry]

:The Nacy Grace B!tch didn't mention the case one time. Not once..."

LOL....I noticed that too...but people like her will keep quiet for a while...then, when most of the sheeple have forgotten what happened, she'll start in with how those white, rich boys got away with a rape....just wait and see...

[Howlin]

Tawana Brawley?

[F.J. Mitchell]

I'm surprised that Mikey Nifong is still white, his only hope of redemption in this election is to contact Michael Jackson's race realignment doctors and have himself changed into an African American. Nifong has plenty of nose to work with, it's unlikely he will come up short as MJ did.

I can believe that the only death threats heard by the AV, are from the voices inside her head.

[Howlin]

The CWP was white. But they used the blacks in Greensboro to bait the KKK.

All the shooters were caught; and tried; and found innocent.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Thanks for looking! He's a perfect gentleman and budding mountaineer. He's already eyeing the difficult passage to the top of the kitchen cabinetry. Thank goodness for his attentive 10 y-o big sis.

[cherry]

I think you might be right.....this woman is definately sick in the head, any way you look at it...( and I am not 100% ruling out that a rape occurred).....

I still think that she was going to steal that car that she was found in.....I think she feigned drunkeness just so she wouldn't be arrested for attempted car theft......its possible....

in this whole case, I feel more sorry for her than I do for the DA...the DA should be in jail IMO

[Alia]

I had been in Greensboro just the week before this happened. On a business trip. First time ever in Greensboro. Loved Greensboro. Arrived back at my office in SF to have my boss pull me in to say "What did you DO?" (joke). I read a ton about it as it was happening. Talked to those I'd been working with.

Either early this year, late last year a "memorial for the fallen communists" was done in Greensboro. Virgil L. Griffin of Mount Holly, imperial wizard of the Cleveland Knights of the KKK, said someone in the crowd of Communist Workers Party marchers fired first and hit a van driven by a Klansman.

"We had every right to drive down that street with nobody touching the cars," he said. "I didn't come to shoot or kill anybody."

Griffin spoke before the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, an effort modeled on similar commissions in South Africa and Peru.

There's plenty also going on in Greensboro, currently.