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
"And "60" is privy to info that has not appeared in blogs,* hard as that may be to imagine. (NONE of it good news for Nifong or Crystal, of course.) "
I wonder if some of that "info" is photographic evidence? You know there has to be more than what we've seen.
Hell, if I were she, or even me (;>), I'd fire him, too, just because he looks so much like the Rapist-in-Briefs, which is good eneough 'reason.'
We know that Nifong likes to deal from the bottom of the deck. We saw that from the cab driver, the reinstating of trivial charges against LAX players (only to have some thrown out of court after trial), circumventing legal counsel, the lies, and on and on. There is little doubt that he threatened the FA unless she did what was instructed -- that is, pick a narrative and select any three players. The consequences of failing to comply were probably dire.
The bombshell thus far from Ed Bradley is that Kim blows the case out of the water. Bradley makes cryptic comments about how Nifong, DPD, and Duke all presumed guilt wrongly and proceeded in an arrogant manner on the presumption. Nifong and Brodhead should be very nervous tonight because one or both of them is going to the woodshed tomorrow, and it will have nothing to do with Kim.
By the way, Michael Gaynor posted on another Board that Part I of hte story airs tomorrow, but that Part II will air next week. Is that right?
I am most likey off in my recollections. Strike my last statement - well, not the part about being a fly on the wall...
If I were Freda, I would have fired him too. That would have been the first thing I did. LOL.
*likely
I hope 60 Minutes isn't going to be split up into two weeks - one segment this week, one segment next week - like Gaynor says. I thought it was going to be two segments in one show. Anyone know for sure?
I don't know for sure, but according to this teaser it is a double-length segment.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/07/08/60minutes/main13502.shtml
This is a double-length segment.
WRAL just ran some of the interview I haven't seen yet; Finnerty and Evans; Evans says "This woman has destroyed everything I've worked for in my life for a lie," or something very close to that.
They are very forceful! Also from WRAL:
Reade Seligmann, one of the three team members the accuser eventually identified, said it "felt like Russian Roulette."
"It could have been any single one of us," Seligmann said. "Kids were even calculating their chance ... the percentage ... that you would get picked."
Seligmann, 20, will appear Sunday on "60 Minutes" along with fellow lacrosse team members Collin Finnerty, 20, and David Evans, 23. A grand jury has indicted all three on charges of rape, kidnapping and sexual offense, and defense attorneys have strongly proclaimed their innocence. The accuser, a student at nearby North Carolina Central University, told police she was raped in a bathroom by three men at a March 13 off-campus team party.
CBS released excerpts of the interviews Friday. While Evans defiantly proclaimed his innocence following his indictment in May, calling the charges "fantastic lies" while speaking to reporters outside the Durham County jail, the broadcast marks the first time Finnerty and Seligmann have spoken publicly since the rape allegations became public.
"I never expected anyone to get indicted, let alone myself," Finnerty said. "It's changed my life, no matter what happens from here on out. It's probably going to be something that defines me my whole life."
http://www.wral.com/news/10073564/detail.html
and at WRAL
http://www.wral.com/index.html
On the righthand side, you can see David Crabtree interview Ed Bradley about the case (scroll down).
She did it because she is a mental case. After she came home for the last time drunk at 6 in the morning, I told her I had had enough.
We decide to divorce and went to mediation. We had an agreement, and she didn't like the amount of money she would get with a joint custody arrangement. So she took off with our three little kids one day and disappeared for a few weeks.
I didn't know where they were for that whole time. She'd just call and tell me they were "alright". Cops wouldn't do anything because in absence of a court order, any parent can hide the kids from the other parent.
Anyway, I got a court order to get hearing to get the kids home. Then she let me see them for a weekend. When she stopped by to get the kids she told me that she was not going to the hearing because she "hadn't been served". (Funny how she knew there was a hearing if she hadn't been served...)
Anyway, I told the kids to go in the house. She grabbed me and spun me around and threw me against the car in front of the kids. I wanted no part of that so I called the cops. The cop came so I had a good witness for what was going on.
Anyway the emergency custody hearing was in a couple of days and when I went I went into the hearing and her lawyer handed me a protection from abuse order that she had gotten the day before, signed by one Judge Fields, (who was well known in Maine for being a very aggressive "domestic violence advocate"). I knew her lawyer pretty well and I laughed - hey, I said, this is bogus and you knwo it. I called for the hearing, I called the cops, the cop was there when I was supposedly beating our daughter according to our complaint - this is going away in a hurry - right?
Yeah, right. Her lawyer quit the next day, but the complaint was there for almost two years. It was a nightmare. Eventually I, too was "found innocent", but I was broke, on the verge of a nervous breakdown and had lost custody of my kids. The "legal victory" was menaingl;ess.
Anyway, my case is not unusual.
THIS KIND OF STUFF HAPPENS ALL THE TIME.
I have had plenty of arguments with court apologists on this matter. When I ask them to look at the facts and their own experiences even the most rabid apologists admit that yes, it happens fairly frequently.
Oh, Judge Fields? Won an award from the local domestic violence service: http://wiscassetnewspaper.maine.com/2002-03-28/judge_plays_judge.html. By the way, my ex-wife was an employee for Family Crisis services for about a year.
Yeah, no corruption in the courts.
I don't like mentioniong that because I expect that you, too, think I am "guilty until proven innocent". Admit it. And then tell me again how the legal system works.
After the DNA came back negative, and the first two photo sessions went disastrously (at least from Nifong's perspective). Nifong himself may not have delivered the message -- that would be the DPD (Gottlieb certainly enjoys these things). Same way the cab driver was whipsawed -- Nifong was in on that up to his ears but there was never a direct meeting. Nifong was also in the middle of Kim's legal proceeding but never talked to her directly. We know the FA was involved in several outstanding investigation that did not appear to get anywhere.
I understand this is speculative but Nifong is as dirty as they come and put nothing past him.
You may be off in your recollections, but probably only indirectly. I can strongly imagine, in fact with a great deal of certitude, that Liefong put it to her like this when she was wavering or outright stating she didn't want to go forward: "Listen, you don't want to be prosecuted for filing a false police report, do you? You don't want your probation revoked and your jail sentence imposed, do you? Do you realize that would probably mean having your kids taken away were somebody to let Children's Services know you were in jail again? Do you relaize that you have family members who may require investigation for some serious violations of the law?"
Their last conversation, once the case was clearly on the skids, may have gone like this, "Young lady, this won't be going to trial for at least nine months. I don't want to see you or hear from you until December, do you hear me? That includes in the media or through or from any other source. And I strongly suggest you take up residence elsewhere until then, too, and don't leave a forwarding address or phone number with anyone but me. You got that? Don't call me - I'll call you when and if I need you. You will discuss this case with no one. Understand?You got that? Go. Now."
Those poor boys.....one lie ( well, more like a whole passel of lies ) and yes their lives HAVE been made into a nightmare and ruined their collective futures.
Talking about probabilities.
What is the number of ways you can pick 3 people out of 46 without ordering them?
That's 15180 combinations.
I think he will watch it, then lie and say he didn't.
Listen to Crabtree's interview with Ed Bradley. Bradley said the most shocking thing to him was the presumption of guilt from the get go. By everybody, even Duke.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.