Replies

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/crime_safety/duke_lacrosse/nifong/story/688232.html

Nifong found guilty of contempt
Hearing focused on what Nifong said about DNA test
By Joseph Neff and Anne Blythe, Staff Writers
DURHAM - Former District Attorney Mike Nifong was found guilty on criminal contempt charges today by Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith III.
Smith has charged Nifong with lying when the former prosecutor assured the judge in September 2006 that he had provided the players’ lawyers with everything he had learned from the DNA lab.

Nifong testified today that the lab director, Brian Meehan, had briefed him in April 2006 about the DNA found in samples taken from the accuser.

Just after 5:30 p.m., Smith found Nifong guilty of lying in court.

Smith called Nifong’s statements regarding the tests “willfully contemptuous.” Nifong could face a $500 fine or up to 30 days in jail.

The crux of his defense was even if he lied to about DNA evidence analyzed in the notorious rape case, he did not know he was lying.

“All the statements that I made to the court, at the time I made the statements, I believed them to be true,” Nifong said.

Nifong finished testifying on his own behalf just after 3 p.m. When the hearing resumes later this afternoon, he is expected to face a tough cross examination regarding his court statements about a May 2006 report from DNA Security, a Burlington laboratory.

Nifong said also today that he approved a crucial report that failed to note the discovery of DNA from multiple unidentified men in and on the woman who accused three Duke lacrosse players of rape.

Nifong said the results weren’t reported because the tests did not match any of the 46 players on the lacrosse team.

“That would not be a problem,” Nifong said.

Nifong also offered a unique theory about whose DNA it could have been.

“It could have come from anybody,” Nifong said. “She had a son, a very young son.”

Nifong said he knew by the end of March 2006 that the State Bureau of Investigation had found no evidence of sperm or semen on the accuser. That was before DNA Security did a more sophisticated test and came up with the presence of DNA.

“This had been a non-ejaculatory event,” Nifong said. “There was no semen left during the course of the assault....in which case it would become an eyewitness case.”

The eyewitness was the accuser, Crystal Gail Mangum.

The DNA findings were important to the defense at the time, in part because Mangum had told nurses, doctors and police investigators that at least one and perhaps all three of her alleged assailants had ejaculated.

An unusual moment came before Nifong’s testimony, when a judge testified that she expected lawyers to be more honest during trial than during pretrial hearings.

A prosecutor asked the judge, Marcia Morey, whether a lawyer would be following his duty to be candid if he assured a judge that a report was complete when the lawyer knew it to be incomplete.

It depended on whether the case had reached trial, Morey said.

“I do think it makes a difference,” Morey said. “Are you are at a trial stage, are you at a pretrial conference.”

The three lacrosse players — Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann — were declared innocent of all charges in April.

Nifong subsequently lost his law license for misconduct in his handling of the case and resigned as district attorney.

Nifong said this morning that as district attorney, his policy was always to turn over complete evidence to defendants. Normally, he said, he did so even before defense lawyers asked for the information, he said.

Staff writer Joseph Neff can be reached at (919) 829-4516 or joseph.neff@newsobserver.com