http://www.herald-sun.com/durham/4-742610.html
Defense Lawyers cite omitted items
Jun 8, 2006 : 10:15 pm ET
DURHAM -- Lawyers Kirk Osborn and Ernest Conner, representing Duke lacrosse player Reade Seligmann, contend in a court motion filed Thursday that Durham police omitted numerous items detrimental to the investigation when seeking permission from a judge to compile and conduct a photo lineup of the lacrosse team. Following are some of the items cited:
-- Durham Police Investigator Benjamin Himan failed to note that exotic dancer Kim Roberts Pittman submitted a handwritten statement in which she said the rape accusations by her dance partner were "a crock."
Himan said the accuser "reported she was sexually assaulted for an approximately 30 minute period."
-- Himan failed to note that the examining sexual-assault nurse was not certified but "in training."
-- While Himan contended the alleged victim had been hit, kicked and strangled, he neglected to say an examining physician found no neck, back, chest or abdominal tenderness.
He also failed to say an examining nurse found the woman's head, neck, nose, throat, mouth, chest, breasts, abdomen and upper and lower extremities were normal -- even though she complained to the nurse of "tenderness" over her body.
-- While Himan quoted medical records to the effect that the accuser had "signs, symptoms and injuries consistent with being raped and sexually assaulted vaginally and anally," the examining nurse noted only "diffuse edema" -- or swelling -- of the woman's vaginal walls.
According to Osborn and Conner, the nurse's report contained no opinion or conclusion that a rape had occurred.
-- Himan also neglected to mention that the accuser showed no signs of physical trauma other than a scratch on her knee and a small laceration to her heel, neither of which was bleeding.
-- The probable cause affidavit claimed the dancer clawed at one of her attacker's arms in an attempt to breathe while being strangled, breaking one of her fingernails in the process. But Himan failed to mention in his probable cause affidavit that that allegation was not in the summary of the dancer's statement prepared by Himan.
-- Himan further failed to note the woman's alleged use of a vibrator on the night of the alleged rape.
Information provided by driver Jarriel Johnson, including an assertion that the woman claimed to have had sex with at least four men not long before the lacrosse incident, also was omitted from Himan's official affidavit, according to lawyers Osborn and Conner.
-- Again referring to medical records, the attorneys said Himan omitted conflicting stories the accuser made about her use of alcohol and drugs.
For example, the woman told a sexual-assault nurse-in-training that she had consumed one drink of alcohol and was taking the medication Flexeril, used to treat muscle spasms. According to McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals, Flexeril, especially when used with alcohol, "may impair mental and/or physical abilities," and that it may "enhance the effects of alcohol."
But the dancer also told a UNC Hospitals physician the next day that she "was drunk and had had a lot of alcohol that night." She later told Himan she had consumed a 24-ounce bottle of beer, but then amended her story to say she drank two 22-ounce beers, lawyers Osborn and Conner wrote.
No official toxicology information about the woman has been made public.
Finally, according to Thursday's paperwork, the accuser told a nurse-in-training that co-dancer Pittman assisted the lacrosse players in assaulting her, then stole "all her money and everything" -- an account inconsistent with Pittman's version of events.
The statement from Pittman attached to the motion said the accuser became "uncontrollable" at the party and did not want to leave after one lacrosse player allegedly said he would use a broomstick on them if they hadn't brought sex toys.
Pittman said she left the party at that point, but the accuser stayed behind. Later, the second dancer came to the car, but went back to the house "because she felt there was more money to be made," Pittman wrote in her statement.
While changing from her dancing outfit into her clothes, Pittman says in her statement, the lacrosse players came to the car and told her the second dancer had passed out "and the fellas may have been ready for the evening to be over."
After that, the statement said, the lacrosse players carried the accuser back to the car, and Pittman locked the woman inside while Pittman "went back up to the house to try and retrieve her (the other dancer's) bag. I looked around . . . and we didn't see anything so I said I've done all I could and went back to my car" and left, at which time the players yelled racial slurs and she called 911 to report the behavior.
Maggief: thank you for the post
A honest judge would have a HUGE problem with this:
"Information provided by driver Jarriel Johnson, including an assertion that the woman claimed to have had sex with at least four men not long before the lacrosse incident, also was omitted from Himan's official affidavit, according to lawyers Osborn and Conner."
Why wasn't this information given to the judge? Why the ommissions? This was a false presentation of the facts of the case.
"Again referring to medical records, the attorneys said Himan omitted conflicting stories the accuser made about her use of alcohol and drugs."
This doesn't look good. It's look like everything was edited and angled to misrepresent or paint a false picture of the event.
I've lost count to how many versions we've heard. This was the first I'd seen though of how Kim was the one who returned to the house for the purse. I wonder whatever happened to the shoe!
Looks like Himan could be busted.
That just screams malfeasance on the part of Himan. Isn't this the kind of thing the Feds get involved in?