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 liked that Nancy had a criminal defense attorney named Stacy as a talking head. This woman was booted off The Apprentice a few weeks ago. Remember? She was the one who was afraid of Brent!
(No one is gonna admit to watching The Apprentice.)
Not at all, just proves that you are a complex woman and no one would be wise to mess with you. :-)
You and Howlin should be charging folks for the legal tutorials you both provide on these threads. Can't wait 'til the Live Threads for CSI begin... lol
Pinz
Any word on what she was doing carrying around $2,000? There's certainly nothing wrong with carrying around sums of cash but she is supposed to be a poor college student just making ends meet. People with $70,000 don't carry around $2,000 on their person very often.
And it doesn't make any sense at ALL to drug only one of them.
Exactly.....why was Chrystal just singled out, why not both....this makes no sense...
bizarro it is.
Because the date-rape drug that lasts 4-5 hours wore off in under 30 minutes.
Oops, should say "even people with $70,000 incomes don't usually carry around $2,000 in their purse - it's too easily lost or stolen."
It's hard to even watch Murphy, but I do so I can see the defense attorney make a fool of her. But she still sits there with that smirk on her face, shaking her head in disbelief that someone has an opinion that differs from hers.
I'm not a lawyer but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn. And watch cop shows. LOL
Thanks Jeff.
She was a half hour late getting to the party so where was she and who dropped her off? I'm sure the defense already knows the answers but we want to know too and we want to know now :-)
Why couldn't they be admitted as evidence? Maybe he didn't want to look at them because he knew it would blow his bid for reelection rear out of the water.
Btw, when this story broke, I wasted no time in calling the guys, "filthy little pigs". It helps not to jump to conclusions.
And.....If the "alledged perp" robbed her of $2000 why would he need to go to the ATM to pay for his food? LOL!
That's what some freepers seem to think we're supposed to believe, isn't it. You put it very well.
LOL - obviously a staged alibi. Either that or he was making a $2,000 deposit at the ATM.
No one knows. I've been trying to figure that one out vis-a-vis the delay in getting the search warrant.
Yeah, and the defense attorney hints to it here ...
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.
(snip)
ZAHN: So, you can't clarify for us tonight what you think that motivation is, based on the research you have done in her background?
CHESHIRE: No.
And -- and I wouldn't do that. It would be wrong for me to do that at this point in time. We haven't tried to try this case in the public opinion. We have just said that these boys are not guilty, in response to what the prosecutor has done. But those things will come out in court. And, when the public sees her cross-examination, and sees her answers, and finds out about that motivation, it will prove what we have been saying all along. And that is that no rape happened in that house.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/17/pzn.01.html
[i]The more I think about it, the more Nifong's actions have actually made sense since he stopped showboating for the media.[/i]
But his 70-plus interviews didn't come to an end until the DNA test results -- which would according to Nifong identify the three rapists -- didn't show a match!
Then he clammed up.... Well, other than going to those candidate forums.
This is Bonfire of the Vanities meets I am Charlotte Simmons.
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