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Hey guys ABC 11's tone was ominous - like the video was bad news for the Cabbie -

but this article in the HERALD SUN seems to validate (or can be read that way) what I said a couple hours ago - the video is GOOD NEWS for Elmostafa. The prosecutions hand was forced when they were presented with a videotape (a COPY too), IMO.

http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-761484.html

CHARGE AGAINST CABBIE REDUCED

By John Stevenson : The Herald-Sun
jstevenson@heraldsun.com

DURHAM -- A three-year-old shoplifting charge was downgraded Tuesday for Moezeldin Ahmed Elmostafa, a cab driver who is an alibi witness in the controversial Duke University lacrosse rape case.

Assistant District Attorney Ashley Cannon said she reduced the charge to aiding and abetting a misdemeanor larceny after new evidence, a videotape made at the alleged crime scene, came to light.

Cannon declined to elaborate.

A trial of the case had been scheduled for Tuesday, but was postponed until Aug. 29 for reasons unrelated to the altered charge.

In April, Elmostafa signed a sworn affidavit saying he drove Duke lacrosse player Reade Seligmann to a bank cash machine, a fast-food restaurant and a campus dorm at about the time an exotic dancer claimed she was raped by Seligmann and two others at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. in mid-March.

The other suspects are Collin Finnerty and David Evans. All are free under $100,000 bonds as they await a trial that is expected to begin during the first half of next year.

A month after he signed the affidavit, Elmostafa was arrested on a 2003 warrant charging him with shoplifting at the Hecht's department store in Northgate Mall.

But the cab driver claimed he merely gave a ride to a woman who later pleaded guilty to stealing from the store.

To convict Elmostafa on the new aiding-and-abetting charge, a judge would have to be convinced that Elmostafa knew of the woman's criminal intentions.

Lawyer Thomas Loflin, representing Elmostafa, implied recently that his client was being hounded by the District Attorney's Office because of his anti-prosecution stance in the lacrosse case.

In a May interview, Lolfin said "reasonable people can draw an inference" from the fact that Elmostafa signed an affidavit for Seligmann one month and was arrested the next. Loflin blasted the arrest warrant as "entirely frivolous."

But District Attorney Mike Nifong said it had always been local policy to serve old warrants when suspects unexpectedly turned up. He denied any attempt to intimidate Elmostafa.