Posted on 04/18/2006 3:26:57 AM PDT by Mad-Margaret
DURHAM -- A day after a grand jury indicted two Duke University lacrosse players in connection with a reported rape, two men emerged from a sheriff's deputy vehicle and were led, handcuffed, into the magistrates office at the Durham County Jail at 4:54 a.m. today.
The arrests stem from a party that began March 13. The accuser, who is a mother of two, an N.C. Central University student and an escort service dancer, told police March 14 that she was sexually assaulted by three men in a bathroom at an off-campus house shared by three lacrosse team captains. The accuser is black; she said her rapists were white.
Defense lawyers said players maintained that there was no sex at all. They said the accuser concocted the story, that she was drunk and injured late March 13 when she arrived at the three-bedroom house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd.
"... Two young men have been charged with crimes they did not commit. This is a tragedy," Bob Ekstrand, who represents team players, said Monday in a prepared statement. "For the two young men, an ordeal lies ahead. They do not face it alone; they face it with the love of family and friends and strengthened by the truth. They are both innocent."
Superior Court Judge Ronald Stephens sealed a manila envelope containing the indictments shortly after the grand jury finished its business Monday. The judge cited a state law that requires everyone involved in a case, including witnesses, to keep the indictment secret until a suspect is arrested.
Last month, a judge ordered DNA tests on the team's 46 white players; he excluded the only black team member. The players' attorneys say the tests showed none of the players' genetic material on or in the woman.
Nifong, bolstered by a medical exam that found injuries on the woman consistent with sexual assault, says he is confident that she was assaulted in the university-owned house. Nifong said last week at a forum at NCCU that the accuser identified at least one of her attackers.
Until Sunday night, the only other witness, the second woman hired to dance at the party, had remained silent. In television interviews, she told her story.
The woman's attorney, Mark Simeon of Durham, declined Monday to make her available for an interview. She spoke on the MSNBC cable news network, which did not identify her and showed her in silhouette. Simeon confirmed that it was his client on MSNBC.
The woman told MSNBC that she did not witness a rape and does not know whether one occurred.
The woman said she arrived thinking that she would be dancing at a bachelor party of 15 people. She was not expecting a party of lacrosse players, many of whom she said were in a drunken stupor. The woman said she was infuriated to learn that some players photographed her dancing.
The accuser did not appear to be on drugs or to have been drinking when she arrived, the second dancer said. She was "absolutely fine and in control of herself."
When the accuser left, less than an hour after she arrived, she was incoherent and stumbling, the second dancer said.
"She couldn't really walk on her own," the woman said. "She really couldn't get her thoughts together enough to answer any questions. ... She was a different person than I met at the beginning."
The second woman said she was the person who called 911 as the party was breaking up, to complain that some lacrosse players had used racial slurs. "The boys hollered the 'N' word," she said. "I was upset and called 911."
She said she pretended to be a passer-by because she didn't want people in her life to know about her job as an escort service dancer.
It is unclear how that woman's story would affect the case. Players' attorneys have said she would only help them. By day's end Monday, Nifong left without talking to reporters; it remains unclear what evidence he has.
Throughout Monday, there were many more reporters on the sixth floor of the courthouse than the 18 members of the grand jury panel. Reporters tracked the district attorney's movements in minute detail. Just after noon, Nifong emerged from his office and walked across the hallway to the bathroom.
Reporters surrounded the bathroom door in a crowd that included five television cameras, three still photographers, sound men with boom microphones and at least a dozen print reporters. At the sound of flushing, the group tensed, raised cameras and prepared. Nifong did not emerge with news.
"I no longer get to go anywhere in my community without people knowing who I am," said Nifong, who faces two challengers in a primary election May 2. Staff writer Anne Blythe can be reached at 932-8741 or ablythe@newsobserver.com.
I felt the same degree of outrage at the injustice of the dems in the 2000 recounts in Florida when they did not count the votes of the armed forces. And the changing and indefinite criteria for counting those damn chads.....and....
I did not reply to you!
You are right, they aren't a crime. My point was the sympathy. There are plenty of truly just causes out there. IMHO, these guys ain't worth crying over.
Here is the bill. It doesn't discuss details of the events, just the list of charges and the true bill/no bill.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0418061duke1.html
So if your sons are injustly charged with rape we won't offer you any sympathy.
I think the parents could sue the News and Observer for putting the team poster, with names and faces, in the front section of the April 2 Sunday paper.
Well then go away and don't worry about it.
so if someone is falsely accused it doesn't matter because you have a personal animosity toward them?..Odd system of justice that would be.
Gee, that does explain why there is no DNA present, doesn't it?
What a joke of our justice system this is.
No need to apologize, I am just writing what comes to mind about this case. These suspects really don't want a trial in Durham, IMO, and anything they can do to avoid that they need to do.
"So if your sons are injustly charged with rape we won't offer you any sympathy."
If he was a bigoted drunk I wouldn't ask for it.
It's not EVIDENCE, which is impartial, it is TESTIMONY, which may, or may not be,impartial.
Oh, I'm so glad your kids have never had a few drinks and said anything bigoted. That you know of.
so we jail all bigoted drunks?--I'm afraid our jails aren't big enough--
Now on Rush:
Rush...
"The interesting thing here is that Duke is a very liberal university, while the alleged victim is from another school.
"now folks, notice how fast a liberal university threw that whole team and their coach overboard on the basis of a single allegation"
Oh, GOOD point by Rush. (You can see I didn't start working around here yet)!
"So do you.
You criticize Kerry and Rockefeller in your tagline - I guess you don't like rich liberals.
I don't either. Or poor liberals or middlin liberals.
But I'm not blind to human nature either. Apparently you are."
Reid...Kerry...Rockefeller are named in a tagline about their outrageous claims in regards to Iraq.
Yet yes, I do resent those rich liberals WHICH MAKE LAWS TO SUPPOSEDLY HELP THE POOR THAT ACTUALLY RESULT IN THE POOR STAYING....POOR. I RESENT THOSE THAT PASS LAWS TO ACHIEVE "SOCIAL JUSTICE" AND THEN EXPLOIT EVERY LOOPHOLE THEY CREATED THEMSELVES TO AVOID TAXES, BAD PUBLIC SCHOOLS RUN BY THEIR UNION SUPPORTERS. I RESENT RICH LIBERALS THAT CASTIGATE SUV OWNERS BUT THEMSELVES OWN SUVS. I RESENT RICH LIBERALS THAT HAVE STAFFS IN THE DOZENS THAT CHOOSE TO IGNORE ALL EVIDENCE THAT SHOWS THEIR PAST ANSWERS AS COMPLETE FAILURES AND YET PROPOSE THE SAME YEAR AFTER YEAR AFFTER YEAR AFTER YEAR. THERE IS A TRAIL OF EVIDENCE WHEN IT COMES TO THESE LEADERS - EVIDENCE IF YOU WILL. RICH LIBERALS THAT ARE NOT PARTICUARLY POLITICALLY INVOLVED DESERVE THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT BUT RICH LIMOUSINE LIBERAL POLITICIANS THAT HAVE 24/7 TO DO THE RIGHT THING AND YET CONSTANTLY PROVE THAT THEY ARE NOT THE FRIEND OF THE POOR, THE MIDDLE-CLASS OR THE RICH - THEY ARE JUST FRIENDS FOR THEMSELVES.
To compare my now admitted animosity towards limousine liberals (whereas my tagline invloves foreign policy and not class) with a clear public record vs. college kids that we have no exact corresponding evidence/public record other than an email and accusations from what one could fairly deem a questionable source simply - well you can't compare.
"Care to elaborate or are you just a drive by jerk?"
Do you always take yourself so seriously, or you "over-Jerseyed"?
I suspect the latter, which bears out my comment.
JOSEPH CHESHIRE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY, CNN, Paula Zahn ...
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/17/pzn.01.html
ZAHN: What can you tell us about those two men?
CHESHIRE: Well, they were two of the young men that were at the party. And, from what I understand it, the likelihood that these two men, with the facts that I understand, could have committed the crimes that this young woman has said that they committed, it would be almost impossible.
And I -- I think you will find some very interesting things out about the time line of these particular two individuals that will make it even stronger to show you and the public and everyone that no -- no rape happened in that house that night, which I'm absolutely convinced is the truth.
(snip)
CHESHIRE: Paula, well, first of all, let me say this for a living -- let me say this about what this woman does for a living.
Anybody that knows what she does for a living and the reality of what she does for a living knows that she could have received those injuries any time before 12:00 that evening. Now, as -- as this trial goes on, we will be able to discover exactly where she is. But the fact that she may have had sex with somebody after 6:00 or before 6:00 would mean, if she went to the hospital, they would show that she had -- quote -- "injuries," which is a word I don't like, but a medical condition, or things in her body, consistent with the fact that she may have had sex with somebody.
That does not prove that she...
ZAHN: Are you talking about consensual sex with somebody else, or do you think she was attacked by...
CHESHIRE: Oh, I -- I -- I...
ZAHN: ... some man not on the lacrosse team?
CHESHIRE: I don't think she was raped at all. I -- I don't think there's any evidence that she was raped at all.
ZAHN: I want to know why you think this woman, who you claim to know an awful lot about, would have made up this story... CHESHIRE: Oh, I -- I -- I...
ZAHN: ... and turned her life upside down.
CHESHIRE: I'm -- I'm not -- I'm not going to -- and turned her life upside down? How about the life of this entire community? How about the life of all these boys? How about the life of the university? How about the life of the racial relations in the city of Durham?
ZAHN: Well, what's in it for her?
CHESHIRE: I mean, I'm really -- I -- I have to tell you the truth.
Well, I mean, I could give you all kind of things that are in it for -- for her. I -- I don't know exactly what was in her that night, but she was clearly under the influence of something very strong when she got to the party.
ZAHN: Mr. Cheshire, you said you and your team know an awful lot about this woman, about her background, and this story will not stand up in court. What do you mean by that? What do you know?
CHESHIRE: Well, I'm -- I'm not going to say or share what we know about her. Obviously, we have done a lot of work on her.
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.