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.
Torie,
That's Nancy Grace.. I thought we were all people.
Apparently White women aren't as sympathic a figure as black women.
Trust me, every one of these player (as well as their families) have suffered. Even when this all ends (and I doubt it will EVER go to trial), these men will have this stigma attached to them forever. Seriously, what is the big deal of keeping receipts? I have files full of insignificant receipts going back years, some people throw things out, others don't. When are these talking heads going to start asking why she was in police custody for over an hour before rape was even mentioned. This case is totally race and class based and I am shocked that so many FReepers are falling for it. If it turns out to be true and the stripper was raped, then it is awful. However, NOTHING I've seen leads me to believe that a rape was even POSSIBLE, let alone true.
I can go online to a title company site, and learn just about everything I need to about a property, the date purchased, the price, the liens, any refinancings, the assessed value, the square feet of the home and the lot, you name it. It takes about 3 minutes. I can see by address, street name, owner name or parcel number. If you want privacy, put your home in a family trust, which doesn't use your name, and even though you technically should, don't put yourself down as owner as trustee of the trust, just use the name of the trust.
I do not know if it has been established the students were inappropriate. It has been asserted, but not proven. Today's kids seem to do more "inappropriate" things than I did as a kid.
Do you think its o.k. to hire "strippers" to perform at a party in a college environment?
By her own assertion, nay, her own insistence, she is NOT a "stripper", but and exotic dancer. Exotic Dancers will tell you over and over they NEVER do anything illegal--just ask her.
Do you think jocks feel they aren't privileged characters on campus?
Who doesn't feel like they are entitled to some sort of "privilege" on campus these days? Every left-wing lunatic, including the professors, thinks they're entitled to cram socialism down every student's throat.
Do you think its o.k. to shout racial epithets at a woman?
Stupid is as stupid does. Whether any of those numb nutz actually did it hasn't been proven, just because the "victim" said it happened. Even if it did, it's a far cry from the N word to the R word.
What about the e-mails from one of these young paragons of virtue concerning skinning a black woman??
I never said they were all saints, but how about we go about getting a warrant to access the victim's e-mails to see if she has any of Louis Farakahn's racist diatribes recorded there. Would that then make them both equally reprehensible?
Do you think the majority of kids at Duke shelling out $25,000 per year plus represent the middle class working American family?
Average working class families are willing to pay what it takes to get their children a good education--even if they have to make some sacrifices to do it. I know that is a foreign concept to many in this country today, but some will still do it. Whether $25,000 buys a better education at Duke than less money would somewhere else is debatable.
Even if there was consensual sex initially, and we don't even know for certain there WAS sex, but SOME evidence indicates it occurred, do you think a woman would permit it to continue until she was physically injured?
Again, it has not been proven any of the players had sex with her. If there is evidence of sex, she could have had it with someone else either before or after the alleged incident. I doubt her business card read "Sister Theresa, Exotic Saint-Dancer".
There are so many factors involved here that indicate these guys were totally out of line and the least they should be facing is expulsion from college.
You obviously know more details of this than I do, but does not mean you know any more that is relevant and true. Let the courts (as corrupt as they are) establish what is or is not a fact--then we'll decide.
If YOU were a Duke alumnus how would YOU feel about this publicity??
I wouldn't like it, but I don't know who the real villian(s) is/are. Whether it's the dumb jocks, the race-baiting "victim", or the political whore prosecutor, but when all the dust settles, someone better pay--BIG TIME!.
I'm a human being and she embarrasses me too! :-)
That woman's soul is just black.
Why didn't she say so in the beginning? She said she was ORALLY raped (forced oral copulation - type of sodomy, actually). It's the same story as the condoms. Mangum never said she was blindfolded or that her eyes were shielded, so far as we know. She outh to have been able to SEE what was being forced into her mouth!!
Nancy Grace and CNN
are so irresponsible. They've reported about 10 things in error already.
Notice on Abrams - the lawyers were all saying they would've run to the DA if they had evidence their client had an alibi - Get it out there.
On Nancy Grace, it's a major blunder to provide the alibi or make it known.
.
Nancy Grace is saying that Nifong has just gotten another warrant for yet another player's dorm room!
Very, very easy, and Nifong is so desperate and has demonstrated a track record of unethical behavior, there is no way I'd let my client submit, especially without the DNA pattern for the exemplar being established first.
One would think the dorm rooms would be pretty clean by now, if there was something to hide.
Just finishing watching Graceless now (5-6 PM CA time, CNN Headline News, NOT Court TV!):
- First minute or two of show: "...and apparently they already have 'alibis' (very exaggerated finger-quotes gesture, includes every muscle up to the shoulders)..."
- "Some say this is preferential treatment, these sealed indictments..." Attacks guest who calls the booking "a humiliating process", now being arrested on a Saturday night and having to stay overnight, that's humiliation, you see. (Does not mention that indictment was less than 24 hrs previous)
- First comparison to Scott Peterson at 5:20 (montage of perp walks, also includes OJ, Robert Blake, etc.)
- Even more angry than usual at guest (prematurely?) mentioning possible alibis. "THANK YOU for expanding on that, but please answer my original question...!"
- Appalled at footage of neighbors near suspects' homes in NY/NJ being interviewed. Neighbors' main concern seems to be that the boys have been arrested, why aren't they be disgusted that the suspects could have RAPED this woman!?
- JACKPOT!: Indignant, scoffing at reports that suspects have ATM receipts
- FULL-NOSTRIL DRESS-DOWN of assistant who refers to defendant by first name rather than as "Mr. ----". Also aghast that he mentions home values of defendants' parents. MUST SEE TV! (45 minutes into show)
- States that false rape claims are in the low single-digits percentage
- MUST-SEE TV!: (47 minutes into show) Incensed at guest who suggests that "suspects' lives may be ruined by a false accusation". Attacks and interrupts him so violently that director puts up a cracking-whip graphic and sound effects
- ANOTHER search warrant issued for a dorm room
- If you didn't know about the ATM receipt possibility, you sure ain't gonna get any more details here
Replay begins one hour from now! And then again at 10 PM CA time
Police Follow Up Arrests With Duke Dorm Search
POSTED: 6:33 pm EDT April 18, 2006
UPDATED: 8:40 pm EDT April 18, 2006
DURHAM, N.C. -- Hours after charging two Duke University lacrosse players with rape, Durham police searched a dormitory room on the Duke campus for more evidence in the case.
Investigators executed a search warrant and searched a room at the Edens 2C Residence Hall. There was no immediate word on what police hoped to recover in the search.
http://www.nbc17.com/news/8806553/detail.html
LOL. Nancy is like some Dominatrix out to humiliate that poor "Let's look at the visuals" guy. She just whacked him with her verbal whip because he referred to "Collin" instead of "Finnerty".
Is there any confirmation of Nancy Grace's interpretations of the newsweek photos? She says there is no evidence of the woman being bruised before walking in.
Maybe Nifong can help OJ find the real killer, too...
YES.
And hookers are "escorts" now. A decade ago we had a serial rapist in the White House and the media was busy redefining sex for him.
I think you nailed it!
mystery, here's a GREAT synopsis of Nancy's show!
They CAN discount her testimony, but they won't if they're black.
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