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'm happy to here that Panthermom.
But that doesn't speak for everyone in that sport.
And in New Jersey, Lacross is not what your average kid about town plays.
Having never been in Long Island, I can't speak for Long Island.
Thanks, schooter. It sounds like we have democrats on these threads. You know -- people who don't want to let their opinion get in the way of the facts (as we know them today). LOL
It's certainly not because it leads to a highly paid career in the pros.
My son has been a club teammate of Reade's younger brothers for years. I'm really in shock at this point. The president of Delbarton has just issued a letter of support for the family according to FOX. I never knew anything about the GJ system before. I didn't realize how unfair it is.
Obviously you have issues about "class status".
Your posts are showing low marks on a different "class" scale.
See my response to the other poster.
Whether its Del Barton or Delbarton or DelBarton doesn't mean anything to me.
I drove past it but never went there.
"Your class envy is showing."
Really. You don't even know my class and I don't know yours and this isn't about class envy, its about the behavior of some overgrown brats.
"Some of the players are from out of state and it's taking longer to get their previous arrest records. I've got another week of perp-shopping ahead of me, and I can't start coaching the 'victim' until then."
This case is going to be difficult to prove. Without DNA evidence backing up the allegations, I have no idea how a conviction could be secured. I think that the prosecutor is looking for lightning in a bottle.
there are 142 high school lacrosse programs in New Jersey--Sounds pretty average to me. Do you live in NJ?
Good for her! I volunteer at the NYC Marathon, usually for four days of the festivities, and I don't understand how those runners do it! But what a spectacle to be a part of! So much fun! (Fun for me, who doesn't run in it.)
Yes, I could imagine what all the families are going through. I say prayers for them every day.
I don't think that the race issue is that hard to understand. Many blacks resent whites in general for what was done to their ancestors. They do not distinguish among white subgroups. Many Jews emphasized with American blacks because of their own history of persecution and pogroms. Yet many blacks look at Jews as just another type of evil white person, and in the case of Marxist and Muslim blacks, an even more villainous person than are other whites.
Kids play sports because its fun.
Also becasue its what their parents and social peers play.
Kids in New Jersey don't usually go coon hunting and Tennessee boys don't generally go dogsledding.
The male MSNBC reporter at the courthouse in Durham just said twice that defense attorneys say neither suspect was at the house that night.
BUT the ex-Baltimore police commissioner made a good point on this the other day....the woman had NO DNA on her including any kind of hairs. He said that was unbelievable considering she said she was raped and choked by three guys for three days. He also said it is very suspicious that the DA is leaking all this info---considering it is less than two weeks to his election.
I, as a woman, predict this little stripper got ticked off because these drunk, stupid guys (who were dumb enough to have a stripper at a party) called her a racial name. And she is getting even.
We've got boys and girls lacrosse teams at Kennesaw Mountain High School, a public school here in Cobb County, GA. The boys play Holy Innocents at home today at 5:45.
Actually, this is the one statement by the defense that makes no sense at all. They tested every male's DNA to compare it to...
What exactly, if there was no foreign genetic material on her. Either she had someone's DNA on/in her person, and no one matched, or there was no DNA to compare - and the idiot DA went around beforehand shouting that the DNA would prove his case.
WHAT DNA did they compare the boys' samples to? This is the one question that can shed a lot of light on the case, one way or the other. If there was DNA, just not one of the boys, a good case can be made that she was raped by someone else. If not, why do all those DNA comparisons to...nothing?
The GJ system has devolved from its original purpose.
No to all of those statements.
Thanks for enlightening me.
This discussion has diggressed substantially from the topic posted.
Are you a Duke alumnus??
Speaking of outrageous spin, I heard Jeffrey Toobin this morning pushing that tired old distortion that most rapists have been convicted without DNA evidence.
Ever since this factoid first arose, I have wondered if people were referring to convictions without DNA evidence EVENTHOUGH DNA TESTING WAS DONE. Or were they throwing in all history when rape convictions were returned before DNA testing was available.
Toobin kept talking this morning and explained that he was referring to pre-DNA history.
Having DNA technology and looking for and not finding DNA evidence, as happened here, means something. Talk about rape convictions without DNA before the technology existed is idiotic hot air from a talking head with an agenda.
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