Posted on 10/11/2006 1:52:56 AM PDT by abb
DURHAM -- A CBS "60 Minutes" segment on the controversial Duke University lacrosse rape case is expected to air Sunday evening and will include interviews with all three indicted players and Kim Roberts Pittman, the second dancer at the party where the attack allegedly occurred.
CBS would not comment on the show. The network's normal practice is to withhold information about "60 Minutes" broadcasts until a few days in advance.
But Pittman's lawyer, Mark Simeon of Durham, confirmed Tuesday that his client was interviewed. But Simeon ended a telephone conversation before fielding a question about what Pittman told the interviewer.
An exotic dancer at the time, Pittman was with another dancer who claimed she was raped and sodomized by three lacrosse players during an off-campus party at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. in mid-March.
Pittman since has been quoted as saying the rape charges were "a crock." She also told police in a March 22 handwritten statement that she and the accuser ended their performance when someone at the lacrosse party "brought out a broomstick and ... said he would use the broomstick on us."
"That statement made me uncomfortable and I felt like I wanted to leave," Pittman added. "I raised my voice to the boys and said the show was over."
Pittman said she then asked the alleged rape victim to leave the party with her. But she said the accuser "felt we could get more money and that we shouldn't leave yet."
According to Pittman, the accuser "began showing signs of intoxication" early in the dance performance and was "basically out of it" by the time it ended.
Pittman finally drove the other dancer to a Hillsborough Road grocery store, from which a 911 call was placed to police.
There is nothing about an alleged rape in Pittman's written statement, which is included in public-record court files.
All three defendants also were interviewed for the "60 Minutes" segment, sources told The Herald-Sun. The interviewer is veteran reporter Ed Bradley.
The three -- Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann and David Evans -- remain free under $100,000 bonds as they await a trial that is expected to occur next year. Each maintains he is innocent.
Neither they nor their families could be reached Tuesday for possible comment about the CBS show, and their attorneys had no comment.
Defense lawyers apparently will not appear on the television program. Neither will District Attorney Mike Nifong, who has been widely criticized for allegedly rushing to judgment in the case and making inflammatory public statements before he had sufficient evidence.
For the past four months, Nifong has not discussed the situation publicly. He was out of town on business and unreachable for comment Tuesday.
Benjamin Himan and Mark Gottlieb, police investigators in the lacrosse case, also could not be reached. But sources said the two had not been interviewed by "60 Minutes" as of Friday.
The Police Department repeatedly has declined to discuss the lacrosse incident.
It could not be determined Tuesday if a one-time driver for the alleged rape victim, Jarriel Lanier Johnson, was among those Bradley contacted.
"I have nothing to say about it," Johnson told The Herald-Sun by telephone before hanging up.
But Johnson gave police an April 6 handwritten statement about an "appointment," "a job" and a performance the accuser had at three different hotels in two days not long before the alleged rape.
Johnson also said she had sexual intercourse with him during the same time period.
URL for this article: http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-777449.html
Good interview, yes, I am very liking Ed Bradley right now. Notice how Ed was careful not to reveal much more than has been shown in the previews already. Gives a fair amount of tension to the situation.
I'm growing confident that the Fong will go under the bus. That much Bradley has telegraphed. However, I wonder what the real bombshell is. He wouldn't give that away in previews and teasers.
Dare I hope that Brodhead goes under the train? I have the sense that the players will divulge just about everything, including what Brodhead knew and when he knew it. Many of us suspected that Brodhead was complicit with the Fong behind the scenes.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave . . . .
If you don't think that Kim is a big fat liar go to The Johnsville News and have a peek...
I rarely go over to the CourtTV board because they started shutting it down whenever the racists leftist over there were being beat over the head by facts. I too went over yesterday to see if there was any talk about this boomlet of publicity, but nothing was going on.
I hope you are right, but here in Massachusetts we had the travesty of the Fells Acre Day Care, repressed memories, and another DA trying to make his political bone - Scott Harshbarger.
There are clearly some very upstanding, bright and hard working prosecutors and police - but there are also a fair number of losers. It is the absence of checks and balances that makes me nervous. In this case many on this and other sites have operated as those checks and balances - but that is a lousy way to run a LE process.
I would love to see Brodhead go under a train, a bus, or anything else. He refused to even meet with the families of the lacrosse players and then he stabbed them in the back.
He will probably utter the usual platitudes and make some literary reference. Beyond that - who knows.
The current DA up there is Martha Coakley. She was involved in the Fells Acres case and the Nanny Case. I think she is running for AG, isn't she? Does she have any opposition?
From John in North Carolina blog:
Friday, October 13, 2006
60 Minutes: Six sure bets
You won’t be wrong if you make the following bets about this Sunday’s 60 Minutes Duke Hoax episode with Ed Bradley:
1) Kim Roberts, the “second dancer,” will contradict key elements of the accuser’s stories. You can be sure about that because 60’s already told us that at its website and in press releases.
2) Roberts’ statements, while important, aren’t the “big news” in 60's episode. Sixty believes it has much more important news to tell viewers.
If 60 thought Roberts’s statements were the most important news, 60 wouldn’t have disclosed them yesterday and sent out thousands of emails to MSM journalists, bloggers and others saying, “Hey, look at what Kim Roberts is going to tell Ed Bradley Sunday night.”
CBS’s 60 won't deliberately give away its “big news” the Thursday before an episode. You get a reputation for doing that and folks will ask, “Why watch? Don't they always tell you Thursday?
Another reason “Kim’s story” won’t be the “big news:” 60 Minutes knows Kim Roberts’ is a serial fabricator. It’s not going to hang its story on her words. (For a nice appreciation and detailing of Roberts’ creative "talents," see this Johnsville News post.)
3) The big news will come first, when the three indicted players – David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann - tell their stories and 60 says that while it couldn’t fact check everything the players said, everything it did fact check supported what the players say; and second, when 60 exposes DA Nifong, Sgt. Gottlieb and others who’ve framed the players and some other people and organizations who in various ways enabled the frame-up and continue to sustain it. --cut--
--- read more on Brodhead ---
http://johninnorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2006/10/60-minutes-six-sure-bets.html
The Nanny Case was different, but you are right she was involved. She is not running unopposed but in this overwhelmingly Democratic, knee jerk state it would need a miracle for her not to win. Dorothy Rabinowitz from the WSJ really fought long and hard for the Amiraults in the Fells Acre Day Care case. Unfortunately she appears to be largely retired and is no longer a voice for sanity and reasonableness among investigative journalists.
What is interesting in all this is the notion of hysteria in crowds and the ability and willingness of certain individuals to manipulate the proclivity for groupthink. The Salem Witch trials are a great example - with 3 Sovereigns for Sarah being a great adaptation. Fortunately the efforts of the blogs and FR have helped prevent a gross miscarriage of justice.
Not so sure the Nanny case was different.
Do you know how many MDs were stacked on that jury? Do you find it odd that an infant of 7months couldn't sit upright. Some strange stuff went on there.
Dorothy Rabinowitz was a real hero in that case. I went to a seminar at Harvard where she spoke. She seemed very frail.
The Salem Witch Trials - great analogy.
My reading is that Judge Smith scored Defendants 3, Nifong 0. But then I also thought that Nifong brought the motion for cheap publicity for his political campaign thereby evading the gag order on lawyers for all sides. Either he knew he would lose or he is simply stupid.
The only benefit to the DA was the late Friday announcement. Is somebody playing politics?
Can we put that one to a vote?
Greta is covering this right now.
Alas the difference between the Salem witch trials and the attempt to criminalize anything but leftist thought today is that the people of MA learned from the Salem witch trials. I don't see the same thing being true about the day care witch hunts of the 1990s?
HAHAHAHA!
I am working with a game on the tv in the background. Can you summarize Gretta?
What is Nancy Grace's "view" on this case now?
Oh boy. Dare we even ask? LOL
I avoid her like the plague now so I have no idea what, if anything, she is saying.
Bernie Grimm said it should go to trial? That shocks me. Did he say why?
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