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.
Parents, pay attention to the colleges your kids attend. My experience was that college administratons had largely given up trying to regulate behavior and prefer not to know what's going on (I'm not saying the rape charges are true, I expect they are not). But for young adult men to be permitted to run wild in college-owned property is ridiculous and you see the effects of it now -- I'll bet many of these boys would never have particiapted in this nonsense except for: 1) the peer pressure; and 2) the lack of any type of social control. The photos of this event reportedly show young college men passed out on the floor, others half-clothed, many in various states of debauchery. Whatever happened to house mothers, college security forces and some type of minimal social discipline on campus? It would have been far better for ALL concerned if such controls were back in place.
The 2nd dancer is quoted in several places, many of them mentioned right here on FR, saying she did NOT believe a rape occured. She was with the accuser the whole night. She should know enough to state an informed opinion, shouldn't she? It seems as if now she is backtracking a bit. I hope her previous denials are used against her as will her first 911 call.
DST?
Does trying to run down a police officer with a stolen car count?
They tested for condoms and no use of condoms were found. The only evidence they have is some vaginal tears that are consistant with rape. However, I am sure "enthusiastic" sex could do the same thing.
As well, why did the accuser smile and talk on the cell phone while leaving the house? She clearly wasn't calling 911. And why didn't she mention the rape to Kim?
Kim's 911 call only mentions being called racist names. LOL
Excuse me.
Is it bothering anyone that I point out that no one here would know more than those immediately involved in the actual investigation?
I agree w/everything you posted. It's just that we are a little touchy about the South always being associated w/slavery when it is a known fact that there were slave owners in the northeast...and blacks who themselves owned slaves. The South is the only one, it seems, which is denigrated for slavery.
Aren't those your words? Why, yes. They are.
We don't think trying to tear apart the stripper's story, which doesn't make sense, is a waste of time. You clearly do. So your being on this thread makes little sense to me.
The party occured on an off-campus house rented by three of the Duke players. There is little the Duke administration could do to regulate them, unless such regulations were part of the terms for playing on a varisty sports team. But, for the vast majority of college students, what they do off-campus is none of the school's business.
Well if CNN said it, then it must be true!!!
Abrahms, MSNBC ...
should hear from one defense attorney that one of the charged wasn't even there.
The gap is longer than I thought. The defense will have to prove that it was the two strippers locked inside the bathroom- do they have pictures of the suspects outside during this 27 minute period? Or are we just going on the eyewitness accounts of the players?
One thing that is interesting is that no one on either side has mentioned whether her clothes were torn. Even if you can account for no DNA or condom traces found on the accuser, it is difficult to imagine that such a brutal rape could have occurred without her lace bodysuit being torn.
Durham is a small predominantly black city. The jury will be made up of both blacks and whites, but since the whites on the jury live there and have to take that into consideration, this could turn into a conviction. If the defendants (at least one is from the north)who are not from Durham are cleared, they will leave the area after the trial and never come back.
MSNBC might be the best channel to catch the press conference reported to have begun at 10am. Abrams in Durham is speaking now.
There is no doubt in my mind that the DA has more information than any of us do. But there is also no doubt in my mind that the DA has blinders on and is going to play this out as a racist rape in order to bolster his election bid in November. He has already passed over the line where he could drop the case, if he didn't secure an indictment, his career was over.
So you would just let the world assume your boys were rapists? Wow!
"Aren't those your words? Why, yes. They are.
We don't think trying to tear apart the stripper's story, which doesn't make sense, is a waste of time. You clearly do. So your being on this thread makes little sense to me."
You seem like the type who would like to boot anyone who doesn't fall in line with your needless speculating.
As someone who has directly seen this type of thing in my own community and my own family - I recognize senseless gossip when I see it.
Not there, as in Durham but not at the party or not there as in in another state? I recall reading that four or five of the players were in New York going on job interviews- wouldn't it be funny if she picked one of those guys?
It is not "senseless gossip" to discuss the lack of DNA evidence or time stamped photographs that disprove the allegations of the accuser.
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