'Go Ahead, Put Marks on Me' (GMA Interview w/Kim

Second Dancer Claims Alleged Duke Lacrosse Rape Victim Said to Bruise Her By CHRIS FRANCESCANI and EAMON McNIFF ABC News Law & Justice Unit

Oct. 30, 2006 — - The second dancer in the Duke rape case has said for the first time that the accuser told her to "go ahead, put marks on me'' after the alleged attack.

Dancer Kim Roberts made the new allegation -- which she has not shared with authorities -- in an interview with Chris Cuomo that will air today on "Good Morning America."

Roberts' allegation comes in the wake of Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong's admission in court last week that he has not yet interviewed the accuser "about the facts of that night."

As she drove the accuser from the March 2006 Duke lacrosse party, Roberts told ABC News the woman was clearly impaired and "talking crazy." Roberts said she tried several different times to get the accuser out of her car.

"The trip in that car from the house … went from happy to crazy,'' Roberts told Cuomo. "I tried all different ways to get through to her.

"I tried to be funny and nice," she continued. "Then I tried to, you know, be stern with her. … We're kind of circling around, and as we're doing that, my last-ditch attempt to get her out of the car, I start to kind of, you know, push and prod her, you know."

"I … push on her leg. I kind of push on her arm," Roberts said. "And clear as a bell, it's the only thing I heard clear as a bell out of her was, she said -- she pretty much had her head down, but she said plain as day -- 'Go ahead put marks on me. That's what I want, go ahead.' ''

Roberts said the comments "chilled me to the bone, and I decided right then and there to go to the authorities."

Roberts was not aware at the time of any rape allegations, which were first made by the accuser after police had arrived and taken the woman to a crisis center.

"It is something that has been weighing on my heart, and I worry that maybe I won't be called to trial,'' Roberts told Cuomo, as she reached for a tissue. "Because all of, so many of her, so much of [the accuser's] statement differs from mine and I, I might not help the prosecution at all as a witness.''

Roberts became visibly upset as she described the accuser's comments for the first time, at one point stopping the interview.

"Because I think it's gonna make people rush to judgment,'' she replied. "It's gonna make them stop listening. … And I don't like this at all. It's gonna make-- It's gonna make people not listen and I, I'm sure you're probably not even going to play this. It's gonna make people not listen to any other part of the story. It's gonna make people so judgmental, it's gonna solidify their opinions so much, that they're not gonna want to hear the other aspects of the case, which I think are just as important.''

Roberts' attorney, Mark Simeon, said she never shared what she says were the accuser's final comments with police, not realizing their significance at the time. He said she would be willing to take a lie detector test about the new information.

Three Duke lacrosse players -- Dave Evans, Colin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann -- were charged last spring with rape and kidnapping for the alleged attack on the exotic dancer, who had been hired by the men to perform at the off-campus party. All three men have vigorously declared their innocence, inside and outside of court.

Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong did not return a call over the weekend for comment.

One legal expert who has followed the case closely from the start said the new information is a clear blow to an already embattled prosecution team.

"To have witnesses appear on a media program revealing information that the prosecutor doesn't know is stunningly inappropriate,'' said Linda Fairstein, who headed the Manhattan District Attorney's Sex Crimes Unit for more than two decades.

Roberts has proven to be a somewhat unpredictable character in a case with a seemingly bottomless supply of surprises.

She has said consistently that she doesn't know whether or not a rape occurred. But she has characterized the evening's events differently to different people.

On March 20, when police first contacted her a week after the alleged attack, she called the rape allegation a "crock'' and said that she was with the woman for all but "less than five minutes.''

A month later, in an Associated Press interview, she indicated that she believed there had been an attack.

"I was not in the bathroom when it happened, so I can't say a rape occurred -- and I never will. … In all honesty, I think they're guilty. … Somebody did something besides underage drinking. That's my honest-to-God impression."

Then, on June 14, in an interview with National Public Radio, she said she was "unsure'' of how much time passed when the alleged victim got out of her car and went back into the house to get her purse.

"I can never say a rape did or did not occur. That's for the courts to decide. I didn't see it happen, you know? But what I can say is that there was opportunity and it could have happened.''

Simeon told ABC News that she has never shared this new information with authorities simply because she was never asked.

"She hasn't spoken to authorities beyond that very first [March 20] interview that police conducted,'' Simeon said. "She's never met with the DA and has never been called back for a follow-up interview.''

Simeon said she told him she felt her complete story was damaging to both the prosecution and the defense's cases, and as such she believes she may not be called to the witness stand at all.

Nifong, who is seeking reelection next month, stunned defense attorneys in court last week when he said that he has yet to interview the accuser "about the facts of that night.''

"I've had conversations with [the accuser] about how she's doing,'' Nifong said. "I've had conversations with her about seeing her kids. I haven't talked with her about the facts of that night. … We're not at that stage yet.''

The prosecutor made the comment in response to a request from defense attorneys for any statements the accuser has made about the case.

Nifong said that only police have interviewed the accuser, and that none of his assistants have discussed the case with the woman either.

The highly-charged case has sparked an intense, bitter rivalry between Nifong and defense attorneys.

In September, he similarly surprised defense attorneys when he said in court that the attack, which the accuser told police took about 30 minutes, had in fact been only "five to 10 minutes.''

"When something happens to you that is really awful, it can seem like it takes place longer than it actually takes.''

Fairstein, widely considered a pioneer in the field of sex crimes prosecution, said Roberts' allegations do not bode well for either her own credibility or for the district attorney's office.

"In terms of any prosecution, it's troubling when a witness who has been interviewed many times comes up with a completely new statement,'' Fairstein told ABC News. "At some point in a prosecutorial interview, she would have been asked to give them anything she knew, any scrap of information that she had.''

Fairstein told ABC News she was shocked to learn last week that Nifong has yet to interview the accuser.

"That is just against the progress that's been made in this very specialized field,'' she said. "It belies anything a prosecutor would do before making charges. There was no need to rush to the charging judgment in this case. … This whole train should have been slowed down and everybody interviewed before charging decisions. To have witnesses appear on a media program revealing information that the prosecutor doesn't know is stunningly inappropriate.''

Former officers' charges dropped

BY RAY GRONBERG, The Herald-Sun
October 30, 2006 11:05 pm

DURHAM -- A Wake County judge dismissed misdemeanor assault charges against two former Durham Police Department officers on a technicality Monday, after the alleged victim and two of the former officers' one-time colleagues finished testifying against them.

The decision by District Judge Debra Sasser came because Wake County Assistant District Attorney Matt Godwin failed to establish that the scene of the July 20 incident -- Blinco's Sports Restaurant and Bar, 6711 Glenwood Ave. -- is actually in Wake County.

Defense lawyers for former officers Gary Lee and Scott Tanner pounced on the error as soon as Godwin finished his presentation, requesting an immediate dismissal. Sasser granted the motion, saying that she wasn't familiar with the bar and hadn't heard anyone testify that it was in her court's jurisdiction.

Glenwood Avenue is another name for U.S. 70, which "is not exclusively in Wake County," Sasser said. "Based on that alone, I have to dismiss it."

Sasser later told Godwin that the error likely wouldn't have occurred if he'd called one of the Raleigh Police Department detectives who investigated the case to the stand. "I bet if you'd had a charging officer [testify], you would have asked that question," she said.

Godwin instead relied on the testimony of three men -- alleged victim and former Blinco's cook Rene Dennis Thomas, and Durham police officers James Griffin and Richard Clayton.

Thomas recounted the confrontation he had with Tanner and Lee outside the sports bar, and Griffin and Clayton provided corroborating testimony.

Both officers testified that they saw Lee take a swing at the cook. They also said they saw Tanner kick or try to kick Thomas -- who had dropped to the ground after ducking Lee's punch -- in the head or face.

Clayton additionally testified that Lee -- who had fallen himself after his elbow or fist failed to connect -- deliberately grabbed one of Thomas' legs to bring the cook down. That conflicted with Thomas' own memory of his drop, which he portrayed as a defensive maneuver.

Monday's testimony shed more light on the events leading up to the incident, and on the actions of the seven current or former officers who were present at Blinco's that night.

Griffin testified that the group was there to fete a departing officer, Daniel Gomez. Tanner, Clayton, Gomez and Sgt. Mark Gottlieb arrived at about 8 p.m., and Griffin followed at about 8:40. Former officer James Kennedy came in later, and Lee arrived last. The group stayed until about 11:25 p.m.

The trouble began as the group was leaving. Thomas testified he was taking a smoke break outside when he saw a black Nissan Titan peel out of the parking lot toward an access road. In response, he hollered at the truck and made a hand gesture resembling the Hawaiian "hang loose" sign.

The vehicle -- driven by Kennedy and also occupied by Tanner -- stopped, and a shouting match ensued between Tanner and Thomas. The cook identified Tanner without hesitation and testified that he and the off-duty officer exchanged racial slurs.

The truck started to drive away, but Thomas pursued it on foot, covering an estimated 35 yards to renew the quarrel. More words were exchanged. Thomas conceded that he directed several obscenities at the truck's occupants, at several points telling the men, "I'm right here."

Clayton and Griffin testified that they came upon a quarrel already in progress as they were leaving the parking lot. They and Thomas agreed that Tanner got out of the passenger-side door and was standing beside the truck as the final confrontation unfolded.

The officers said Thomas was belligerent, but they had different memories of what the cook said. They agreed that Kennedy stepped in and used a finger to poke Thomas in the chest. Griffin said Kennedy poked the cook three times, but Clayton said he did so only once. Thomas testified that Tanner was the one who poked him.

The finger-poke was the last act before Lee intervened. He charged in after stripping down to a tank top. Thomas and Griffin said he threw a punch, but Clayton testified that he thought Lee was trying to lead with a flying elbow. Thomas again identified Lee without hesitation.

Griffin said Tanner's part in the alleged assault was a no-wind-up "half-kick" that landed on Thomas' head. He testified that Kennedy yelled immediately at Tanner to stop. Clayton wasn't sure the kick landed.

The testimony of the three men was consistent in only placing six of the current or former officers at the scene. The odd man out appeared to be Gottlieb, who Durham Police Chief Steve Chalmers has said was in a parked vehicle and didn't see the altercation.

Thomas said he'd only seen three men in addition to Tanner, Lee and the truck's driver. He identified Griffin as one of them. He also said he didn't notice Lee until the man who poked him in the shoulder pointed him out, just as the then-officer charged.

From the officers' accounts, Clayton and Gomez were in one car and Griffin was alone in another. Griffin said he approached alone on the same side as Lee. Clayton came from the other direction. He shed little light on Gomez's movements. Neither officer mentioned Gottlieb apart from saying the sergeant had been at the party.

Defense attorneys Duncan McMillan and Thomas Manning asked questions that stressed Thomas' role in keeping the confrontation going. Manning also bore in on Griffin who, like Clayton, testified that Lee had contributed to the cook's fall to the ground in some way. He questioned whether Griffin -- who admitted to drinking four pints of beer in course of the evening -- got a good look at what Lee did after his own fall.

Manning offered the dismissal motion that ended the case. The bar's location would have been easy enough to establish -- it's almost seven miles southeast of the Durham/Wake county line along U.S. 70, on the Wake side -- but Sasser wouldn't allow Godwin to get it into the record after Manning called the omission to her attention following the close of prosecution testimony.

Thomas accepted the dismissal. "They were terminated from their jobs," he said, noting that Chalmers fired Lee and Tanner after an internal-affairs investigation of the incident. "It all happened so fast, and I did have a part in it. It was fair, in a way."
URL for this article: http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-783342.html

AP Interview: DA says he must prosecute Duke lacrosse case

By AARON BEARD, Associated Press Writer
October 30, 2006 6:47 pm

DURHAM, N.C. -- The district attorney at the center of the Duke lacrosse rape case has heard the criticisms from experts and armchair lawyers alike, but said Monday he's comfortable with almost all his decisions and is confident about taking the case to trial.

"I think that I have a responsibility to prosecute this case," Mike Nifong told The Associated Press on Monday. "I think that really nothing about my view of the case and my view of how the case ultimately needs to be handled has been affected by any of the things that have occurred."

Nifong, running for election against two challengers who have attacked his handling of the case, obtained an indictment against three lacrosse players accused of raping a stripper at a team party in March. David Evans, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty have strongly declared their innocence.

The 56-year-old Nifong, who has worked for Durham County's district attorney's office since 1978, thrust himself into the story in the days after the accusations became public, granting numerous newspaper and TV interviews as he prepared to face two challengers in May's Democratic primary -- an election he won.

His tone was decidedly aggressive, as Nifong called the players "hooligans" used to having "expensive lawyers" get them out of trouble. He denounced what he called a "blue wall of silence" that had supposedly formed around the perpetrators.

"I think it was pretty clear that I (misunderstood) the likely consequence of appearing on camera," Nifong said. "Certainly what I was trying to do was to reassure the community, to encourage people with information to come forward. And that was clearly not the effect."

After that initial flurry of interviews, Nifong generally stopped talking publically about the case, referring reporters to his courtroom comments. But in Monday's interview about the upcoming general election, Nifong defended his handling of a case that divided a community and led to a debate about race, class and sex, as well as the culture of privilege for athletes at Duke, a prestigious private university.

"My personal feeling is the first step to addressing those divisions is addressing this case," Nifong said. "That is not the kind of thing that you can really assign to somebody else and say, 'You go do this for me. The future of Durham's in the balance and I don't really want to get my hands dirty. You do it.'"

Nifong said granting so many interviews was his only regret, insisting that he and police investigators have not mishandled the case.

"Could I have done things differently? Of course I could've done things differently," he said. "Can I do things differently in the future? Of course I can do things differently in the future. But at any time, I've got to do what I think is the right thing to do."

Nifong's apparent indifference to the criticism angered defense attorney Joseph Cheshire, who represents Evans. Cheshire said Nifong's belief he "wouldn't look back and do any of that differently is astounding."

"I don't think that you could find any person educated in the law who would not second-guess many things that Mr. Nifong has done in this case," he said.

The latest questions about Nifong's handling of the case came last week, after he said he and his staff have yet to interview the accuser about the facts of the case, leaving that work to police. He said Monday his responsibility is to direct the investigation, not conduct it.

"I've been prosecuting cases for 28 years, and nobody has ever asked me questions about my policies in terms of when I have normally interviewed witnesses," he said. "But all of a sudden, everybody has an opinion about when I should interview witnesses in this case."

Experts differed on the wisdom of Nifong's decision. Former Denver prosecutor Norm Early, who now works with the National District Attorneys Association, said his office would file more than 4,000 cases a year and that he would only interview a handful of victims.

"It's not standard to talk to the victim in every case," he said. "The police department generally has a conversation with the victim and the law enforcement relays that information to the district attorney."

But for a case generating as much public scrutiny and with such strong claims of innocence from the defense, it makes sense for prosecutors to get involved, said Yale University law professor Ronald Sullivan Jr.

"Those claims of factual innocence alone should trigger some duty in the prosecutor's office to evaluate the merits of this case," he said.

Nifong declined to comment on an interview, aired by ABC on Monday, with Kim Roberts, a second stripper at the party. Roberts said the accuser was clearly impaired and "talking crazy" after they left the party and drove to a grocery store.

Roberts said she was unable to get the accuser to leave her car, and pushed on the woman's arm and leg to try to force her out. Roberts quoted the accuser as saying: "Go ahead, go ahead. Put marks on me. Go ahead. That's what I want. Go ahead."

"And it chilled me to the bone," Roberts said.

Nifong said he occasionally receives pieces of hate mail -- "Some of it is, 'How can you sleep at night? You're a disgrace,'" he said -- but he said most people he has met while campaigning have been supportive. He said he's received letters of support from rape victims, which he said have meant the most.

"As a practical reality, almost anything the district attorney decides is going to make some people unhappy," he said. "It's not a position that you can afford to be terribly thin-skinned about because you have to understand that it's part of the job. You're not there to please people in the first place."

------

Associated Press Writer Mike Baker contributed to this report from Raleigh.
URL for this article: http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-783128.html

http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/504607.html
DA's foes raising more
Durham incumbent lags in amount of money brought in
Benjamin Niolet and Anne Blythe, Staff Writers
DURHAM - The two campaigns trying to unseat District Attorney Mike Nifong each beat the embattled prosecutor at the fundraising game.

Write-in candidate Steve Monks raised the most money of any single political action committee in the three-month reporting period from July 1 to Oct. 21. Monks raised $15,703 in individual contributions. A committee on behalf of Lewis Cheek also raised $14,596, with more than half of that amount coming from out of state donors.

Nifong raised $10,614 during the period with most of his largest checks coming from lawyers in the Triangle. He had a head start on his opponents since Nifong already had nearly $2,000 when the period started. He also has name-recognition that money can't buy.

Third quarter campaign finance reports were due Monday. The reports show a busy fundraising season in the district attorney race, a campaign fueled by criticism over cases pending against three Duke University lacrosse players who are accused of raping an escort service dancer at a party.

The election is unusual both for its intensity -- district attorney contests normally pit a long-serving incumbent against a hopeless challenger -- but also for the unusual ballot lineup. Nifong is on the ballot as a Democrat. Monks is a write-in candidate. Cheek, a Democratic county commissioner, got on the ballot as an independent through a petition drive. But Cheek has said that if elected, he would not serve, and if he turns down the job, the governor would appoint a prosecutor for a two-year term.

The fundraising season has been a marathon for Nifong who fought a hotly contested primary against two opponents in May. He won, and with no Republicans in the primary Nifong seemed to have locked in re-election. But after the primary, weaknesses in the lacrosse case emerged. Criticism grew over his handling of the case and his actions in pushing it forward. National media attention has drawn passionate observers across the country.

Each campaign raised at least $2,500 from contributors who donated amounts smaller than $100, the threshold for which donors have to be named under state law. But the list of Cheek's donors who gave more than $100 shows the interest and resonance the lacrosse case has generated throughout the nation. The Committee to Recall Nifong-Vote Cheek received checks from 50 donors with out-of-state addresses. Those checks amounted to more than $8,000.

Ernest Isenstadt, a retired federal prosecutor who lives in McLean, Va., contributed $1,000 in two payments during August. His daughter went to Duke University. He became interested in the case while she was at school and has followed it since. Neither he nor his daughter has any connection to the lacrosse team, he said.

"I'm deeply concerned about the behavior of Mr. Nifong," Isenstadt said. "It's just unlike anything I've seen in my experience."

Julie Linehan, Nifong's campaign chairwoman, said she was not concerned that the other campaigns had raised more money during the past quarter. The other candidates might need to spend more, she said, to get the name recognition.

She was disturbed by the number of checks from out-of-town contributors to the Recall Nifong-Vote Cheek campaign.

"That tells me that supporters of Duke just want to oust Mike Nifong, and I question their commitment to Durham in general," Linehan said. "How much have they contributed to poor people here?"

Durham residents Anne and John McMahon, each gave $2,500 to Monks in September. She is a retired health care consultant, and he is former chairman of the Duke Board of Trustees and former president of the American Hospital Association.

"We were very upset by the damage that was done by Mike Nifong to this community and Duke University," Anne McMahon said Monday night. "When we learned that Mr. Cheek would not serve if elected, we thought the best candidate would be Mr. Monks."

Monks said he has to contend with low name recognition and the fact that his name is not on the ballot.

"I need the extra money to overcome all the obstacles that I've got," Monks said. "When people get into that voting booth and they're thinking, 'God, I want to get rid of Mike,' I think a person who's really thought about it would be inclined to vote for me," Monks said.

Two other political action committees working for Cheek raised more than $7,400 during the period, according to finance reports. One of those committees, Ethical Durham, donated $2,000 to the Committee to Recall Nifong-Vote Cheek.
Staff writer Benjamin Niolet can be reached at 919-956-2404 or bniolet@newsobserver.com.

http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/504586.html
Second dancer: Accuser wanted marks
Duke rape case takes new twist
Benjamin Niolet, Staff Writer
DURHAM - The second dancer in the Duke University lacrosse rape case told a television interviewer Monday that after she and the accuser left a team party, the accuser wanted to have marks on her body.

The accuser's words came as Kim Roberts struggled to get the woman out of her car, Roberts said in the interview.

"She pretty much had her head down, but she said, plain as day, 'Go ahead, go ahead, put marks on me. Go ahead. That's what I want,' " Roberts, also known as Kim Pittman, said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Roberts and the woman were hired to dance at the party, and the accuser told police she was raped by three men that night.

Roberts had not told investigators about the accuser's remarks in the car, according to an ABC News story about the interview.

Roberts and her lawyer could not be reached Monday.

Roberts has provided new information about the case in multiple interviews with national news organizations. She surfaced when she sent an e-mail message to a public relations firm seeking advice on how to capitalize on her involvement with the case.

Lawyers representing the three indicted lacrosse players have said the accuser's account of that evening is a lie and that no rape or assault occurred.

Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong could not be reached for comment.

In Monday's interview, Roberts said the accuser was clearly impaired and "talking crazy."

"I tried to be funny and nice," she said. "Then I tried to, you know, be stern with her. ... We're kind of circling around, and as we're doing that, my last-ditch attempt to get her out of the car, I start to kind of, you know, push and prod her, you know."

That's when the accuser made statements about having marks on her body, Roberts said. Before she revealed the statements, Roberts sighed.

"This is hard for me ... because it is, I feel like it's prejudicial and I feel like it should come out in the trial," she said in the interview.

Roberts said the comments "chilled me to the bone, and I decided right then and there to go to the authorities."

But in a May interview, Roberts said she was reluctant to talk to police because she was wanted for violating her probation.

The night the two women left the party, Roberts stopped her car at a grocery store to get help with the accuser, she has said. When police came, Roberts, who had a warrant out for her arrest, told them she picked up the woman on the road in a crowd of men yelling racial slurs. Police did not ask her name, and Roberts went home.

A week later, Roberts' escort agency told her police wanted to talk to her about a possible rape. After giving a statement, she was charged with a probation violation.

(Staff writer Joseph Neff contributed to this report.)
Staff writer Benjamin Niolet can be reached at (919) 956-2404 or bniolet@newsobserver.com.
Staff writer Joseph Neff contributed to this report.

Pinging the DukeLax list. New info from ABC news...

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/LegalCenter/story?id=2617301&page=1
Sole Black Duke Lacrosse Player Says White Teammates Stereotyped
Says He Finds Rape Allegations 'Impossible' to Believe
By CHRIS FRANCESCANI
ABC News Law & Justice Unit

Oct. 31, 2006 — - He is the only African American player on the 47-man embattled Duke lacrosse team and the youngest man in the group.

In his first, exclusive interview with ABC News, Devon Sherwood said that his three white teammates who have been accused of sexually assaulting a black woman have been stereotyped by class and skin color.

"It's almost a reversal,'' Sherwood, 19, said in an interview that will air on this morning on Good Morning America.

"'Well, their daddies are gonna buy them the big time lawyers and they're gonna get off. We can't have that,'" Sherwood said that critics have said.

"It's just been all the stereotypes... I've even been stereotyped for being rich, being on full scholarship, [being] not in touch with my own black community at Duke... It's terrible to find yourself being stereotyped," Sherwood said.

"And you're like, 'Hold on, this couldn't be much further from the truth," he said. "You know? So it's just amazing that the things you see and that [were] going on in this case and how the reversal from black stereotype to now rich white, priveledged stereotype.''

'Impossible'

In an interview with ABC News' Chris Cuomo, Sherwood shared his views on his teammates, his own experience, the prosecutor in the case, race issues and the night of the now infamous off-campus party when the sexual assault allegedly occurred.

All three defendants insist they are innocent of the charges. Their trial is expected to begin next spring.

Sherwood said he finds it "impossible'' to believe that the rape allegations are true.

"I'm 100 percent confident,'' he said. "I know nothing indeed happened that night at all."

Asked how he could be so sure if he wasn't present when the alleged attack took place, Sherwood said he knew the defendants well enough.

"I don't hesitate,'' he said. "I believe in the character of my teammates. I believe in the character of specifically [the three defendants]. I would never ever... doubt them or think, 'Well, are they lying?' I would never do that, because I believe in them."

'Stunned'

Sherwood was at the party the night of March 13, but left early.

"It was kind of boring to be quite honest," he said. "We were just sitting around. And there was nothing to it. It was very boring. I was itching to get out of there, because it was -- I'd rather be going to sleep personally to tell you the truth."

He learned about the rape allegations a couple days later at a bowling alley with the other team members.

"Everybody's having a fun time and I just looked over my shoulder. And I saw four captains talking to our former coach. And we knew something was wrong," he said. "We were like, 'What's going on? Did the coach find out about the stripper party or what?'''

When he learned of the allegations, he said, "I was stunned."

"I was surprised. I was dumbfounded," he said. "You know what? It was almost, it was movie-like."

'If It's True, It's Disgusting'

Another thorny issue for Sherwood were the racial slurs his teammates allegedly directed at the dancers as they left the party.

Both dancers claims they were called racial epithets and that one of the young men yelled, "thank your grandfather for my white cotton shirt,'' as the pair of women departed. A neighbor confirmed to police that he, too, had heard the comment about the shirt.

Sherwood said his teammates approached him when the allegations first surfaced, urging him not to believe everything that was being said about the team.

He said he was moved by the fact that while the three defendants were facing felony rape charges, their first concern seemed to be his feelings.

"I felt really special then, because I knew they were looking after me as well," he said.

Sherwood seemed to struggle a bit as he grappled with the notion that his teammates could have made such caustic remarks.

While the alleged slurs have never been flatly denied by the Duke players, it's unclear who among the dozens of team members at the party may have uttered them.

"If it is in fact true, it's disgusting," Sherwood said.

Noting that he's never heard his teammates even jokingly utter such insults, Sherwood said that racial remarks are a fact of life in America.

"It's not the first time I've -- I woiuld ever hear anybody call ... me by the 'N-word' or anything like that... and it won't be the last," he said. "If it's true, everybody's human.

"Everybody makes mistakes," he said. "No one's Jesus. Like no one's going to be perfect all the time. So you just forgive. Don't necessarily forget, but you forgive and you work to correct the mistake."

'Lone Black Player'

As the only black player on the team, Sherwood was excluded from authorities' requests for DNA from all the team players.

"I was fully expecting ... to give DNA. I remember the day vividly. I remember they got me to walk out with everybody else. And then Coach Pressler, our former coach who I love dearly, he said... 'Come here real quick.' I came over. He was like, 'You know, you don't have to go,'" he said.

Sherwood said he knew his teammates weren't mad, "but it's almost like I'm leaving them...it's like I'm not there with my troops. That's the kind of sense I felt."

He said that, as the first player named in print, he also felt strangely isolated by his race, a feeling he said he never felt on the field or in the locker rooms.

"Devon Sherwood...the lone black player," he quoted an early newspaper article as referring to him. "The 'lone' being the key word, as if I was in a corner in the locker room. Everybody else was 50 yards away from me. It was a very, very key word there -- the 'lone.' Instead of saying the 'sole' black player, the 'lone' black player."

'Rot In Hell'

Sherwood said that last spring he was the target of accusatory, anonymous e-mails

"One e-mail, [the] person basically said that if my teammates [go down] then I should go down as well, that I should quote-unquote, rot in hell.

"I don't know why. I wish I knew why...but at the same time...I really don't care. But at that time I was like, 'Whoa -- this guy wants me to rot in hell. Like, he doesn't even know -- he doesn't even know who I am...what my favorite food is or anything like that. He doesn't know me at all. And he wants me to rot in hell if these guys go down, too,'" he said.

"I would get random e-mails saying I was letting down my race, that I should turn in my teammates, referring to me as a 'young black soldier,' basically saying I was letting down my race, I was letting down my forefathers, which is completely insane," he said.

Sherwood said he turned to his mother, Dawn, a class of '75 Duke graduate school alumnus, who counseled him to take it all in stride.

Tensions Rising

As tensions throughout Durham rose with the quickening pace of the investigation, Sherwood found himself in the middle of an escalating conflict.

Two of this teammates had been indicted. A third indictment was in the air. Team member said there had been threats of drive-by shootings.

The case was the talk of the town and the nation. Protests were launched, on and off campus. The county courthouse was a daily mob scene. The coming district attorney election was a neck-and-neck race. The press was everywhere.

But there were moments of levity.

In late April, days before the primary election, the New Black Panther Party threatened to march onto campus, armed, and conduct their own interrogations of the players. Counter protesters -- among them white supremacists -- emerged and vowed to meet the Panthers at the gates of the school.

Sherwood's mother Dawn began to worry about her son, as she saw the images of the protests on television from her Freeport, N.Y., home.

She and other family members began calling around, trying to locate Devon in Durham and make sure he was safe.

Time passed, and no one could seem to find Devon.

When they finally got him, he answered the phone, groggy and annoyed.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm asleep in bed. You woke me up."

His mother said she always laughs when she tells that story.

Re-Election Bid

Sherwood said he felt Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong had used race "to his advantage to get re-elected.

"I think he's used that -- he's used ... the black people of Durham -- and the white people of Durham as well.''

Nifong indicted two players -- Colin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann -- two weeks before a tight primary election that he won by a margin of 3 percent. Two weeks after the election, he indicted Duke lacrosse captain Dave Evans.

Ghosts

Sherwood said he has felt a deep-seated camaraderie with his teammates since the day he joined the team as a walk-on player.

"I had one brother when I came to Duke. Now I have 47 brothers...46 of them just happen to be white," he said

Sherwood's parents were both Duke graduates and his father Charles, undergraduate class of '75, is believed to have been Duke lacrosse's first black player.

The younger Sherwood turned down a scholarship at another school to play at Duke, where he said he felt most comfortable after meeting with former coach Pressler.

Sherwood said the entire experience, which he said has torn apart the lives of his teammates and their families, has also strengthened the bond between the young men.

"We're almost inseparable," he said. "We have a bond for life that no one else has. We know that we're in a unique situation.

"And it's something to be... definitely something to remember. I wouldn't say I think 'cherish' is the right word, but ... it's something that is very unique and that you can definitely remember for the rest of your life -- and know that if you have a problem or if you need to talk to somebody that you can call any one of those 46 guys. And that they'll be glad, they'll gladly want to listen, to try and help in any way they possibly can."

He said he is a little bit haunted by the absence of his teammates. Evans graduated, and Finnerty and Seligmann have been suspended from the university because of the criminal charges against them.

"It hurts," he said. "Like, you walk ... and you see [their] lockers, just empty, nothing there.

"It's kind of like -- it's not -- I don't want to say ghosts.

"But it's just like, you know, you wish they were there with you.''

Possibly the single best commentary written to date on this spectacle, courtesy of Tony Soprano of the TalkLeft forum...

"On the Eve of Halloween, Mike Nifong told an AP reporter why the three Duke Lacrosse Players must be put on trial:

You can make the case go away pretty easily..... You can do it with the stroke of a pen. But that does nothing to address the underlying divisions that have been revealed. My personal feeling is "the first step to addressing those divisions is addressing this case..... The future of Durham's in the balance."

Listen closely, and you can hear Mike Nifong clamouring for these three young men to be sacrificed in the name of addressing underlying issues in Durham.

What do these three have to do with feelings and underlying feelings in Durham?

Nifong told USA Today in March, There's been a feeling in the past that Duke students are treated differently by the court system. “There was a feeling that Duke students' daddies could buy them expensive lawyers and that they knew the right people."

So courtesy of the Town Elder's mouth, we know the "feelings" were there in Durham before these players ever came along. But, somehow, it seems they are being held hostage for some perceived "feeling" in the community. A perceived Evil in the community.

One interpretation of Nifong's pontifications are that a trial - the sacred ritual - is necessary and if the three players are sacrificed, it's what the community demands -- and needs.

It has always bothered me that Nifong told a National audience that the woman's behavior that night in March was consistent with someone that had experienced a Traumatic event. A reaction is not evidence. People react in different ways. Appearances can be deceiving. People act and people fake. But, Nifong reasoned someone must be to blame for the woman's behavior.

The Salem Witch Trials began with a young woman that exhibited bizarre behavior. Some of the "evidence" used against accused witches in phony trials, where the accused were assumed guilty, was the reaction of an afflicted young woman. Defendants were often asked, "If you're not a witch, how do explain the fact that these afflicted girls fall into fits the minute you enter the room?" What happened at Duke Medical Center? We were told that the accuser reacted hysterically to the sight of a man at the hospital. The accuser had to be shielded from men at Duke, in order to prevent her fits.

The young women in Salem, after their fits, reported that they were pinched, kicked, and strangled and pointed out the witch or wizard that was responsible. At Duke Medical Center, according to the NYT, the SANE nurse wrote that the Duke accuser, told of being held by both legs and pinched, pushed and kicked. Those observering the fits in the 17th century, said the young women cowered under chairs and spoke nonsense and gibberish. The Duke accuser cowered under furniture in a Durham Strip club before stealing a car. Kim Roberts and Medical personnel have alternatively described her as speaking nonsense and being incoherent.

Town leaders in Salem whipped the townspeople into a frenzy over the alleged witches inflicting pain and fits in young women from the community. The community anger overflowed at accused Witches in the courtroom: "In contrast to the dignified courtroom decorum demanded by most U.S. judges today, the Salem witches were confronted by belligerent magistrates, rabid witnesses, and apoplectic spectators in the gallery. One defendant was struck in the head with a shoe thrown by an onlooker."
It seems Durham Village, even today, doesn't have "dignified courtroom decorum." If you recall when a young man, David Evans, entered the courtroom, observers yelled out obscenites and threats at him - as the Black Panthers and angry townspeople gathered outside, like Salem, it seems Durham Village also presumes Guilt before their trials.

One of the afflicted young women in Salem was described like this by a modern day author:
"She was a sad and vengeful woman whose life had been filled with hardship and misery. Which had greatly affected her mental health and made her susceptible to visions, dreams and omens. Her fragile state of mind left her high-spirited and prone to fits of fancy, which had fatal results for some of the accused." The afflicted young women in Durham village has a long psychological story of problems and in unrelated cases has accused at least four men of crimes that would put them away for most of their lives.

In Salem, a town Leader wrote that there was a "blak cloud that threatened this Province with destruccion"; Town Leader, Mike Nifong tells us today of the urgent need to prosecute these young men, "The future of Durham is in the balance," we are told.

Mike Nifong's investigation and prosecution has a lot more in common with a witch trial to cleanse the town of its "underlying feelings," than an examination of the facts in administering the Law. Nifong should be careful in calling for an exorcism, be careful what you wish for, Elder Nifong."

http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2006/10/31/News/2nd-Dancer.Reveals.More.About.Night-2411936.shtml?sourcedomain=www.dukechronicle.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com
2nd dancer reveals more about night
Nifong reaffirms his intentions to prosecute
David Graham
Posted: 10/31/06
The second dancer present at the March 13 party at which members of the 2005-2006 men's lacrosse team are alleged to have committed a rape said Monday that the alleged victim told her she wanted to have "marks" on her.

During an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," Kim Roberts said the alleged victim was "talking crazy" after leaving the March 13 party. Roberts said when she tried to forcibly remove the alleged victim from her car, the woman told her, "Put marks on me. Go ahead. That's what I want."

Roberts added that she did not speak up earlier because she is afraid of the evidence's affect on her standing as a witness.

"It is something that has been weighing on my heart, and I worry that maybe I won't be called to trial," she said.

Three members of the of the 2005-2006 men's lacrosse team have been charged with rape.

Also Monday, Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong told The Associated Press he felt a responsibility to pursue the case.

"You can make the case go away pretty easily. Anybody could," he told the AP. "But that does nothing to address the underlying divisions that have been revealed."

After an initial flurry of media appearances, Nifong has spoken very little publicly. But in Monday's interview, he acknowledged missteps in his initial response. "I think it was pretty clear that I [misunderstood] the likely consequence of appearing on camera," he said. "Certainly what I was trying to do was reassure the community, to encourage people with information to come forward. And that clearly was not the effect."

The interview comes just three days after Nifong said at a pre-trial hearing that he had not spoken with the alleged victim about the events of the party.

Nifong defended that decision Monday.

"Why do I have to be the one that's interviewed somebody?" he asked. "The police, other people can deal with interviews and they can report to me what they do and I can direct them from that. It's not necessary for me to ask you about a specific event from your life for me to get a good sense of whether or not you're a reliable individual."

On ABC, Roberts said she has not spoken with the police since March and has never been interviewed by Nifong. She added that she might not be called to the stand at the trial.

"Because... so much of [the alleged victim's] statement differs from mine... I might not help the prosecution at all as a witness," she said.

Roberts' most recent interview adds another detail to an account that has differed with itself on several occasions. She previously said allegations were a "crock," but said on other occasions that she did not know whether a rape had occurred. Legal experts said her credibility could be called into question. "When people change their stories, most of us think that makes them seem less reliable but not always, so it's really a common sense credibility judgement the jury makes," said Sara Beale, Charles L. B. Lowndes professor at the Duke law school.

Iza Wojciechowska contributed to this story.

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