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.

[beyond the sea]

LOL.

Put a little hat on his head and back go to the 50's:

Call for Phillip Morriiiiiiissss."

http://www.bellhop.org/

[Jezebelle]

Yes, I've tuned Rita out as to this case. She's tring to make a controversy out of nothing. If you look at the side of Kim's car, there's a whitish spot on it that you can see in the photo with Mangum's leg hanging out. I wonder if the hood and/or fenders are gray primered or replaced pieces from another car and haven't been painted to match the rest of the car.

[Jezebelle]

LKK, her father is a chronic, compulsive liar. Check this out: in one of his earliest interviews with a cable network (I'd don't remember if it was Rita or Greta - Rita, I think) that he saw her the day after the rape after she got home from the hospital that her leg was out of joint and that the doctor couldn't get it back into the joint. Poor Crystal has been walking around for over a month with her leg out of joint!

Beyond that, his first contact with the media was a week or more after the party and he knew nothing about it, and that he'd seen her the next day and she was fine. The nexts story from him was that he saw her at the house after her boyfriend brought her home from the hospital and she was all beat up. he said he felt bad about not knowing about it in time to be with her in the hospital. Meanwhile, an interview with Crystal for the N&O came out in which she said, among other things, that she had to go forward with her complaint because she just couldn't look into her father's sad eyes as she lay in the hospital bed with him looking at her, wondering who did this to his baby. So, the next story from her dad was that he'd seen her at the hospital that day and she was so badly beaten it really tore him up. I think that's when he came up with the leg joint story.

So, with people like him for a parent, is it a wonder she can't tell the truth? It is part of her family heritage, and I wouldn't expect them to rein her in. Lying is hereditary in that family.

[Jezebelle]

My thought exactly. Apparently this isn't the end of the bombshells about Miss Crystal.

[maggief]

They can't get their stories straight.

http://www.newsobserver.com/100/story/433646.html


The woman's father said Thursday his daughter was not raped in the 1996 incident.

"They didn't do anything to her," he said.

The father said his daughter was held against her will by a group of men who had picked her up from school in Durham and drove her to Creedmoor. She was not sexually assaulted or injured in the encounter, he said, and she was returned home safely the same day.

The 1996 accusation came to light Thursday after Essence.com, the Web site of Essence, a lifestyle magazine, reported in a news update that the accuser's mother had said her daughter was raped by several men in Creedmoor when she was a teenager. When contacted by The News & Observer on Thursday, the mother said the magazine misrepresented her comments. She refused to elaborate on what her daughter had reported to the Creedmoor police.

"I'm not going to tell you anything," the mother said.

---

1996 Police report:

http://www.wral.com/download/2006/0428/9057546.pdf

http://www.wral.com/download/2006/0428/9057549.pdf

[maggief]

Asked Thursday if she was sexually assaulted, her father said, "I can't remember." In an interview with the News & Observer of Raleigh, posted Thursday night on the newspaper's Web site, he said the men "didn't do anything to her."



http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory?id=1900215&page=2

[maggief]

LOL


The alleged victim's father said he didn't know of any death threats to his daughter, and he doesn't believe the New Black Panthers are looking after her.

"At least, I hope and pray they aren't," he said. "To me, they're just as bad as the Klansmen."

http://www.herald-sun.com/durham/4-729212.html

[Alia]

I took sinkspur's comment about falsely accusing someone of "raping" being doubly worse, to be quite realistic. Not only does it cause greviously harm to the person being falsely accused... BUT it also causes harm to those women who are, in fact, raped -- and because who would believe her, now.

[maggief]

Poet Chris Vitiello should try reading the news ...

http://www.herald-sun.com/durham/4-729212.html



Meanwhile, a benefit organized to raise money for the alleged victim at Joe and Jo's Downtown drew only a handful of supporters Thursday night. Organizer Chris Vitiello said he wondered if interest in the case had waned.

"The story has had so many twists and turns," he said, "It's seemed lately that [the story] is about the DA's election and that seems to leave a sour taste in some people's mouths."

[Jezebelle]

So, Mangum is reluctant to contact Gary? Could it be because she wants to lower the volume on this entire matter so she can just slip out of the picture and have it all go away? The fact that she hasn't contacted Gary tells me either Shabazz is going to have her use his legal staff, ir else she's afraid to take on a lawyer because she doesn't want to testify?

[Alia]

"At least, I hope and pray they aren't," he said. "To me, they're just as bad as the Klansmen."

Last year in Fayetteville, there was an NOI guy on the streetcorner hawking his wares. We were all stopped at a red light. I looked around me. Everyone in their cars was black and looking in any direction BUT the NOI guy.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

Thank God it wasn't a cherry tree!

Hope you have a sense of humor, cherry :-)

[writmeister]

Professional sex crime interviewers have a pretty strong set of screens to detect false accusations of sexual assault. In college towns, false accusations are extremely common and law enforcement is pretty savvy about handling them. The AV apparently survived these tests. Somebody believed her at some point. Why?

Nifong took control of this case from the Durham police department before they had completed their investigation, which is an unusual tactic. It has also been reported that the D.A. investigator running this investigation has fairly minimal experience. It is quite likely that the experienced sex crimes investigator never got a chance to screen the complainant's accusations.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

I wonder how many women will be reluctant to come forward when raped....especially if by someone who would make news.

When I think of all who were adversely affected by this, my head explodes

[TheSpottedOwl]

Could you put me on your Duke ping list? I'm tired of trying to track down the threads. Thanks!

[TheSpottedOwl]

She was in a mental instution last year...a nervous breakdown over MONEY!

I have those all the time. At least she has medical coverage. I'm kind of joking ;-)

[za_claws]

I would like to be added to the ping list as well.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

I hate to even suggest this so as not to give anyone any ideas, but I would wager if this really falls apart, she will claim her father molested her for so many years.

[mystery-ak]

I have those all the time.



LOL...so do I...

[Krankor]

If the car the strippers got into at the end of the party was white, then it turned blue at the Kroger parking lot because the security guard describes the car to the police in the 911 call as blue but looks black at night.