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.
"You are an idiot with an ax to grind. Take it elsewhere."
That's quite a nice comment. It shows your intelligence.
By the way, pal, I KNOW Del Barton and most, or a good many, of their students come from very affluent homes in very affluent communities.
And the average blue-collar worker has a hard time in some communities getting the scratch together to send their kids to ANY private school, public or private, so they wind up in poorly run and poorly taught public schools.
Some of the oldest fortunes in New York and Boston were based on the slave trade, for instance, the Delano family of which Franklin Roosevelt was descended on his mother's side. Downstate New York and New Jersey had extensive slavery, with some areas rivaling the Tidewater South in the use of slaves in agriculture and commerce. These two states were also the last in the North to abolish slavery, with there still being a few dozen slaves in New Jersey at the time shots were fired on Fort Sumter.
However, the grievances of blacks about past mistreatment by whites have no tie as to whether the slave ship owner or the plantation owner was a Yankee or a Southerner. Whether some white is a descendant of slave ship owners or plantation owners or not is less relevant than the fact that, in the perception of many blacks, they have "white skin privilege" and benefit from the past abuses of whites.
The bottom line is that perception, rather than reality, is what matters to many people, including many blacks.
"Hey! I live in the South and I do not understand the atmosphere surrounding this situation!"
Be careful! Saying something like that around here gets you branded as a racist.
The answer is: because they were sending quotes from "Ameican Psycho", a movie about a guy who kills a prostitute, back and forth.
It's amazing, isn't it?
What is wrong with families trying to do the best they can do for their children.
From your posts it's clear there is a lot you don't understand about life in general.
Numerous articles mention that both strippers were black. What makes you think that the other stripper was white?
Yes, she is an admitted prostitute. Again, thanks for knowing key details. No, that doesn't make it right for her to be raped.
I didn't say it ruled out intercourse. Must have been someone else. I just find it interesting that she was supposedly gang raped yet they find, oh yeah, NOTHING.
I heard that too and interpreted it as complete SPIN (AKA lie). She has to know that there was NO DNA evidence found at all.
Words are these people's stock in trade. They know what they mean. The pure newsreaders maybe not, but the investigative types like Rita certainly do.
If you knew Del Barton you would also know it's Delbarton.......get lost, pal!
"14th."
OK. I was one day off. Some others were asking about DST, and the timestamps.
All I was saying that DST has no bearing whatsoever in this case.
Just call me slow. I need a link please.
Have you seen the Time magazine article that says the police may have conducted a sting operation and sent that e-mail?
And I think it was Dan Abrams (but am not positive) who said the student who presumably sent the e-mail was in class at the time the e-mail was sent.
Ten years!
Show a me link. You're just making this up.
Let me tell you something- I grew up on Long Island, I am 42 years old. By the time I left high school, we did not have a football team, we had a LACROSS TEAM. My parents scrimped and saved to send my brother to Catholic school where he excelled in Lacross, almost the ENTIRE TEAM received scholarships to Division 1 schools. My brothers friends as well as siblings of my friends received scholarships as well to schools such as Ohio State, Delaware, John Hopkins, Maryland, West Point I could go on. I DID NOT GROW UP WITH A SILVER SPOON IN MY MOUTH, NOR DID ANY OF THE PEOPLE I KNEW THAT GOT SCHOLARSHIPS. I have family and friend that STILL live up there and lacross is the sport to play.
Certain classes of people are drawn to certain sports because its trendy for their class. Its part of social statement as much as a sport. Like throwing axes at a lumberjack competition or foxhunting.
Do you have to be rich to foxhunt? I doubt it. But I doubt if the average joe who can afford a horse and riding habit would feel very welcomed at a foxhunt hosted by the better people.
It's jealousy. Whenever I see freepers putting down those with money, I think of them posting away from their little trailor.
Apparently not well enough to know it's one word.
Your class envy is showing.
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