Call adds mystery to lacrosse case (DukeLax)

In the middle of a Duke lacrosse party where a dancer said she was gang-raped for 30 minutes, a call was placed from her cell phone to a Durham escort service.

The 12:26 a.m. call to the service, Centerfold, lasted one minute, according to a copy of her cell phone bill reviewed by The News & Observer. It is unclear whether the call was a request for another job, a cry for help or something else, or even whether the accuser made the call herself.

But the accuser's phone records add some details to the chronology of the March 13 party, a drunken spring break bash that spawned a national controversy.

Neither prosecutors nor defense lawyers would discuss the phone records Tuesday. Neither the accuser nor a second dancer at the party could be reached, nor could representatives of Centerfold. Police Chief Steve Chalmers was out of town; his spokeswoman said he would not discuss the case.

Three players have been charged with first-degree rape, sexual offense and kidnapping: Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J.; Collin Finnerty, 19, of Garden City, N.Y.; and Dave Evans, 23, of Bethesda, Md. Lawyers for the players have proclaimed their clients' innocence and said no rape or sex occurred at the house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd.

District Attorney Mike Nifong, whose handling of the case has undergone national scrutiny, has been adamant that the woman was raped at the party. Nifong has not given a precise timeline of when he thinks an assault occurred.

In Regard to Susan Estrich's Article on Duke and the Football players - LOOOOK !!

The differences in treatment by the Media is asounding. For one, I haven't seen anything on the TV but a quick mention during the news section on one FOX show. Where are all the reporters? Every cable show was doing Duke stories in the early days - every one.

Look at Estrich's piece. She doesn't mention Race anywhere? Why aren't we being told the Race of the suspects?

Estrich mentions the C word - consensual. It's an 11 year old and 10 Big Football players but she gets the consensual word in there.

The Poor Boys - these guys are victims! They don't have good legal representation according to Susan. Boo Hoo - these poor boys are away from home because their 2 year schools don't offer football! Talk about oppression - no football team!

You should be crying by now, by design, if not, Susan offers, "For the boys, convictions will likely ruin the chance they had to escape. The two-year college scholarship might have lead to another one, to a four-year school, to a degree, to a different life."

It's all about the boys and how they are affected. This is how the media treated the Kobe Bryant case. Every show contemplated how Kobe's life was at stake - his entire career - so the evidence had to be Sterling. This is something they had to be real sure about because of the impact to Kobe if the allegations weren't true. Okay - good. Why doesn't that translate to the Duke players? Why aren't their lives - their futures worthy of the same safeguards?

You guys already pointed out the crazy statements that the Duke players didn't give any statements or answer any questions - you can see Susan doesn't know the first thing about the Duke case.

The poor 11 year AV gets thrown overboad by Lefty Susan, she says "Her life no doubt wasn't very good to begin with." Stop the Presses! The girl can't be hurt too bad because her life already sucked! This from a feminist?

Shades of the O.J. Simpson trial here. In court pictures were presented of Nicole Brown Simpson with with a black eye and swollen face. 911 calls were played were Nicole Brown Simpson says that one day O.J. is going to kill her and that he's been stalking her. When the feminists had to decide between their allegiance to women or their leftist allegiance to the black cause - they chose the black cause. When the verdict was delivered in that case by a jury foreman making the Black Power symbol to O.J. Simpson - all we heard on TV was a chorus of this is how our system works, we have to respect their decision. They even told us how this was a good example of how our system still works as designed.

Susan finishes by lamenting the team "going down" and "end up ruining THEIR lives. Again, the concern is for the player's lives.

Did you guys see the MSM lamenting how the Duke incident will affect the lacrosse player's lives?

And Where are all the Cable programs? What happened to Geraldo, O'Reilly, Rita Cosby, Keith Olbermann, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Susan Filan, Nancy Grace, Time, the Washington Post, etc.?

You'd think they'd be covering the story aggressively just to preempt the criticism. They have to know the cases' treatment will be compared.

Great vent, Mike! "You'd think they'd be covering the story aggressively...". Live in hope, die in despair on that one. The same year this happened to our son, two other major signees were arrested -- both black -- their parents hired lawyers (as did we) and the school district in the one case backed down. In the other, well, you heard about it on O'Reilly the guy sexually abused a 9-year-old over a four year time frame and got 120 hours of community service and 4 months in prison. O'Reilly's indignation was the only press the two black athletes received. My son was in the media as far away as Florida -- where we received calls from his former classmates in college. What do you think of that???

http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=local&id=4359669

Suspects Plead Not Guilty in Sexual Assault of 11-Year-Old

July 12, 2006 - Two men made their first court appearance on Wednesday, accused of a vicious attack. 20-year-old Mackey Davis and 19-year-old Eddie Scott pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting an 11-year-old runaway.
It's step one in what could be a long legal process. Wednesday, the two players had some supporters in the audience as they denied the charges against them.

Lisica Garcia says she's a former girlfriend of Davis. She says she never experienced the type of lewd conduct Davis is now accused of committing, "He's not harmful, he's not disrespectful, he's really nice ... he never asked for anything, never made contact, touched, nothing."

Police say Davis and Scott, and as many as eight other men, sexually assaulted the eleven-year-old girl at the Villa Hermosa apartment complex in central Fresno on Saturday.

Attorney Jack Revvill says Davis' family hired him and he expects DNA evidence could help his client, "Mr. Davis himself eagerly awaits the results of DNA tests that will clear him of any allegation that he raped or had sexual intercourse with this young runaway girl."

Police believe the victim ran away from a group home with 15-year-old Jamie Gonzales.

Investigators recently found Gonzales outside the area and now want to know how long she was with the victim before the assault.

"That'll be a very important part of this case. She could've split up with her right away and provide us some new info, or she could be in the apartment the time this assault took place. We don't know yet, we're in the process of finding out," said Jeff Cardinale, from the Fresno Police Department.

Davis and Scott remain in jail on $55,000 bail. They could face up to eight years in prison if convicted.

(snip)

Curious speculation (and speculation only)

The judge in the Finnerty case halted the testimony of the bartender/bouncer and wouldn't let him continue.

IIRC he was a defense witness? So there is a part of the story which would have helped the defense case which was not allowed to be heard?

Did the judge know what that evidence was? (Might the judge have threatened the bartender with being cited for permitting underage drinking--or even threatened the establishment he worked
for with being closed for that offense? Or would the DC attorneys have threatened that if he testified?) That would be absurd, in Georgetown, where hundreds of students who are underage frequent those places.

And this is all SPECULATION at this point.

But if so, does that suggest that the judge had his verdict already decided, and he was not going to allow the defense to prove its case?

Because what he gets out of that is that Finnerty is under 6 months' probation. Violate that, and he goes to jail.
(The judge has previously ridden Finnerty and threatened him with jail over missing a curfew which his own office had given him permission to miss; and over the Wonkette affair.)

If so, why would someone want to keep that kind of threat over Finnerty's head? But remember that almost all the AV's associates have also been arrested and or threatened, along with the cabbie, etc. Is this usual operating procedure?

Is Nifong and Co. simply trying to tie up as many of the actors in this case as possible, with heavy pressure of further prosecution? And is that such a habit that Finnerty is also getting the same kind of treatment?

(Note I don't know any of the above is factual; it's simply a reasoned speculation. I hope I am wrong. But if not, then something is rotten in DC as well as in Durham.)

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