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Lacrosse lawyers seek notes
Anne Blythe, Staff Writer
DURHAM - Defense lawyers have requested the handwritten notes from a security guard who observed the accuser in the Duke lacrosse rape case when she first reported being sexually assaulted.

Gerri L. Wilkes was working on March 14 at the Durham Access Center, a mental health and detoxification center, when police brought the accuser in because she met the criteria for involuntary commitment, defense lawyers said in a motion filed Monday in Durham County Superior Court.

The accuser interacted with three people at the center, according to defense lawyers, but it was not until recently that they realized one of the workers had kept notes from the 40-minute encounter.

Earlier this summer, District Attorney Mike Nifong told a judge that no reports of the encounter were made at the center and that an admissions log was all that existed.

The center is where the accuser, an escort service dancer, first reported being sexually assaulted while at a lacrosse team party at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd.

Police drove her to the 24-hour mental health facility early on March 14 from the Kroger supermarket on Hillsborough Road.

Officers had found the accuser passed out in the passenger seat of a Honda Accord driven by the other escort service dancer hired to perform at the lacrosse party.

The accuser was unresponsive, according to police notes from the incident, so an officer drove her to Durham Access Center.

"During the check-in process, the victim was asked if something had happened to her and she said yes," officer Joseph Stewart wrote in his report. "She was then asked if she had been raped and she stated yes."

Kirk Osborn, the Chapel Hill lawyer representing one of the accused, found out about the notes while interviewing Wilkes, according to the motion filed Monday.

Wilkes declined to discuss details from that night when reached Monday.

Nifong has declined to discuss the case outside the courtroom. The next hearing is set for Friday.

Defense lawyers also are trying to get recordings from any radio exchanges among officers on secondary channels on March 14.

"Upon information and belief, a number of DPD law enforcement officials communicated over police radio frequencies about the response and the observations of the officers at the Kroger scene, as well as what happened after the accuser was taken to the Durham Access Center and then, later, to the Duke Hospital Emergency room," the motion says. "These communications occurred on various frequencies, to include secondary channels that are used to communicate among the watch commander, the district sergeant and officers."

The district attorney has provided defense lawyers more than 1,800 pages of documents. Under state law, prosecutors are required to open their files before trial.

The documents are only part of the evidence that could be introduced in a criminal trial. They do not include information still being gathered or testimony that might occur under oath.

Defense lawyers also want Nifong to give a precise account of what allegedly occurred that night. They demanded a more precise timeline of the alleged offenses. They asked the prosecution to specify which of the two bathrooms at 610 N. Buchanan the gang-rape allegedly occurred.

Lawyers also asked the prosecutor to specify which "sexual act" each defendant is accused of committing.

(Staff writer Joseph Neff contributed to this report.)
Staff writer Anne Blythe can be reached at 932-8741 or ablythe@newsobserver.com.
Staff writer Joseph Neff contributed to this report.
http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/488098.html

acrosse case defense lawyers request notes on accuser

BY WILLIAM F. WEST, The Herald-Sun
September 18, 2006 10:39 pm

DURHAM -- Lawyers for three indicted Duke lacrosse players want District Attorney Mike Nifong to turn over handwritten notes from an employee of the mental health and substance abuse facility where the accuser first claimed she was sexually assaulted in March.

The defense attorneys -- in court papers filed Monday -- argued that Gerri Lomuriel Wilkes of the Durham Access Center indicated she intended to give her handwritten records to Nifong's office.

The lawyers argued they have yet to see any such paperwork and that they still have only Nifong's statements in court settings of there being just a blank check-in log and no substantive report by anyone at the center about the accuser's presence there.

Nifong declined comment Monday on the latest court filings made on behalf of accused 2005-2006 lacrosse players David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann.

The papers come in addition to court filings late last month claiming Nifong and Durham police hadn't provided several pieces of vital evidence in the case, as required by law.

Last month's filings came after Nifong, Durham County's chief prosecutor, told Superior Court Judge Osmond Smith and defense lawyers a toxicology report indicated the accuser had tested negative for the presence of controlled substances.

One of the attorneys for the players said those findings undercut public hints by Nifong in April that the woman might have been given a date-rape drug.

The defense has repeatedly pressed for answers about what happened in the hours immediately after the alleged attack, particularly regarding the accuser's trip with police to the Durham Access Center -- where she was taken from a Kroger grocery store on Hillsborough Road.

Seligmann, Finnerty and Evans maintain their innocence on all counts -- rape, kidnapping and sexual offense -- in connection with allegations surrounding events at a lacrosse team party March 13 at a house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., next to Duke's East Campus.

The accuser, who was hired to perform as an exotic dancer, claims she was attacked in a bathroom at the house.

Lawyers for Finnerty and Evans want to know in which of the bathrooms in the house the alleged offenses took place and the specific "sexual act" each defendant is alleged to have committed.

The lawyers for Finnerty and Evans argue "the defendants cannot adequately prepare or conduct their defenses without such information," including specific times and dates.

Lawyers for all three defendants also say they want copies of audio recordings of all communications on all radio frequencies about the activities and observations of all police officers involved in activities related to the case in the early morning hours after the alleged incident.

The lawyers' request includes not just communications between officers and the dispatcher on primary channels, but any radio traffic on secondary channels used by the watch commander, district sergeant and other officers to communicate among themselves.

The lawyers specifically want to know what was communicated over police radio frequencies about the response of officers at the Kroger, where the dancer arrived and a security guard at that scene who reportedly called 911 to say the dancer appeared to be drunk or intoxicated.

The accuser was taken to the Durham Access Center and later to Duke University Hospital.

URL for this article: http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-770973.html

Rich white males are America's new victims

Jimmy Haynes, [Letters, Sept. 16] like Mike Nifong, apparently has not been paying attention to the evidence in the Duke lacrosse hoax. Haynes says that if the defendants are innocent then why have they not come forward to support the alibis of the wrongly accused. They have come forward. All of the players have signed affidavits stating no rape occurred. And in the beginning, the three residents of the house fully cooperated with police without legal council and all three offered to take polygraph test.

I guess to Haynes, unless they lied and told authorities what Haynes wants to hear, then they are not cooperating. The Duke players were cooperating until they realized District Attorney Mike Nifong was not interested in the evidence, just like Haynes. Nifong had a primary election to win. Anyone that has been actually following the case would realize that there is not one. There is not one piece of evidence that supports a rape.

The only people that are supporting this travesty are people with agendas (race, sex or class) or individuals that are ignorant of the evidence. Just because the characters in this fiasco do not support the sex or color of society's definition of victimization does not mean it is not an injustice.

Just like Jews and blacks in the world's history the new group that society blindly allows people with agendas to discriminate against is rich white males.

RODNEY TURNER
Durham
September 19, 2006

Starn needs a Plan B

In response to Professor Orin Starn's article in The Herald-Sun on Sept. 15: I would certainly be interested in the professor's Plan B regarding athletic reform. Assuming, for argument's sake, Duke would drop its participation in Division I competition and offer only club sports, let's play out this scenario and some of its adverse consequences.

Duke would lose national exposure, suffer a considerable loss in financial support from alumni, lose all of the coaches presently on staff and most of the employees in the athletic department. Furthermore, Professor Starn's plan for athletic reform at Duke will bite off a portion of the hand that helps feed the academic prowess Duke enjoys.

Starn's proposal is hallmark thinking of a provincial ivory tower academic. Duke Athletics will weather this latest storm and be stronger for the effort.

Rather than displaying this divisiveness, which is not needed at this time when the University is attempting to heal, Starn should show some loyalty.

And while Starn is at it, he should come down out of that ivory tower once in awhile, look at the positive side of athletics and cheer for the Blue Devils.

FRAN HAMACHER
Durham
September 19, 2006

http://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/hsletters/