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 think we can ALL agree that having a party and hiring a stripper is wrong, but no excuse for being wrongly sent to prison for 30-40 years; as well we can all agree (I hope) that being a stripper does not mean you "deserved" to get raped. Many people (on both sides) seem to be bringing their own baggage to the discussion. Kind of reminds me of the Schaivo affair.
I, too, bring baggage. I was a high school nerd, and HORRIBLY mistreated by jocks at high school. I have a tendency to believe they are capable of the most cruel acts. It wouldnt' take much to make me believe they could have done this. What I have seen, however, doesn't even reach that threshold.
Thank-you so much for providing this!!!
Was she even in the house long enough for the drugs to take effect?
I guess the new approach will be that it's unthinkable that a stripper could have ingested drugs on her own.
Usually women who go back to the men who batter them have a twisted relationship with them.
You are exactly correct, and I apologize profusely to you. I had "cc'd" you on my post to mariabush, and had thought your responses were hers.
Her charges of racism on this by FReepers just really set me off.
You were speaking on "alertness" so no, I don't think I was changing the subject at all when I mentioned something that would dull one's alertness. And pics indicating drunkenness? Haven't heard of a conviction for drunkenness with a picture...
Ahem. Condoms themselves leave trace evidence and none was found on the accuser. None. No DNA from the boys. No hair. No skin under her fingernails, although she says she fought them off.
Look at the timeline and tell me when three men could have raped this woman and no one in the house heard it, including the second dancer.
Case closed? Well then they don't have anything to worry about.
"Racism" charges against people here tend to push all of us over the edge. If anyone wants to witness true racism, go to Durham and watch the demonstrations in front of the house on Buchanan Street.
I would!
I would not be defending my kid for his slip in moral choice, absolutely not!....He would get a good tongue chewing!
But you bet, like this NYC firefighter dad, I sure would be mad as heck, for this public lynching we all seem to be watching!
46 young men ...essentially all of them, whether they were there or not....caught up in this hellish media salivating game....
Yeah, as a parent, you bet I would be mad!
She sure wasn't in that house long. She was a half hour late even getting there.
And they left the house at 12:30 or so. Where did she and Kim go that they didn't even call 9/11 until after well after 1:00? And why did Kim's 9/11 phone call only mention that they'd been called racist names?
The accuser put herself in this situation by baring her body for money. It was her choice to 'besmirch' herself.
>>I have not assumed anything of the sort. I am simply saying that maybe it really did happen. No one knows for sure.
Can you make a case that it did, that ties in with the copious known information we have available?
I guess it's "racist" to expect a reasonable case be presented before ruining lives with a prosection after a very questionable accusation, that seems more and more unsupported with any evidence. In fact, quite the contrary; the more we learn, the more the guys appear innocent.
Who is the boyfriend, and what role did he play in all of this?
Did he drop the accuser off at the party?
Did the accuser call her father for directions to the party?
GRACE: When had you seen her before that time?
TRAVIS: I saw her the night it happened.
GRACE: Before the incident?
TRAVIS: Yes.
GRACE: Did she have bruises or scratches at that time?
TRAVIS: Not one. Not one.
GRACE: Are you absolutely positive?
TRAVIS: I`m sure. And she was happy and laughing. As a matter of fact, I took her to the store before she left.
GRACE: For what?
TRAVIS: She wanted to go to the store, and get some soda, and get the children some candy before she left.
GRACE: Before she went to the party?
TRAVIS: Yes, yes.
GRACE: How does she feel about being a stripper?
TRAVIS: I couldn`t answer that. I really couldn`t.
(snip)
TRAVIS: Well, she didn`t go through a lot of it. She didn`t tell me a lot of the details, but she did tell me that three boys had raped her. And I asked her where was it at, where did it happen at? And she said at that house. And then I felt horrible, because that was the same place that she asked me how to get to.
(snip)
GRACE: Had she been drinking?
TRAVIS: No, not to my knowledge. As a matter of fact, when she called me, I could tell that, if she drank, she hadn`t drank enough to even begin to be drunk.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/17/ng.01.html
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