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.
O.K.
I found the link. It was hard work, but I located it just because I'm so find of you.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1616564/posts
It doesn't actually say the witness was black. It says the witness and the victim had racial epithets thrown at both of them by the "young gentlemen" as they left the "party". Since hte one woman was black and they both received racial epithets, my conclusion was they were both black.
Thanks, Howlin. I put that remark made to me in my lowclass file.
No problem then. We've had a few arses here this morning and so we're suspicious. LOL
Okay, I don't want to give false information. The MSNBC site has video of the reporter saying the defense attorneys say they have proof neither suspect was inside the house when the rape could have occurred. I hope someone will check the audio, because my ears aren't what they used to be:
(look under Top Stories, "Two Duke Students Arrested")
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
Attorneys down here think that that could be thrown out -- fishing expedition.
It's all over the net that she was having sex three times a day? That was what I was replying to...
Exactly.
And she's going to have to do something about that "they raped me for 30 minutes" thing.
We seem to be LOADED with it........LOL.
Carolinamom's post said that she was having one-on-one's three times a week (not a day, as you mentioned). And that comes from Crystal's own words in an interview early on in N&O.
No problem. I was trying to dispute someone else's claim and got blindsided. I work in Durham and live in Roxboro and have yet to see anything saying the second stripper was black.
I wonder who she was talking to on her cell phone? Maybe IF it goes forward the defense will subpoena her cell phone records and call in that person to see what was said or talked about. My guess is her "service" person.
"Being from New York, I could go on and on about assumptions about people from Jersey, but I won't go there."
They're all true.
I live in Gwinnett, we don't have lacrosse here YET. My son wants to play, he plays football in the fall and would love to try lacrosse.
She'll say the drugs they slipped her affected her perception of time. LOL
Of course, she never mentioned being drugged but she'll start. Any day now.
Did you not see her interview on TV?
She is MOST DEFINITELY black.
FGS, give it a rest.
If she wasn't black, why would she be offended at having been called the N word?
I can't run the video at work and the article does not say she was black.
That's who we think she was calling too. And we think her service person is also her driver/boyfriend who probably dropped her off.
The other woman, or stripper, has admitted making this call. She is black.
http://media.putfile.com/blkgirf
Sounds just like a liberal doesn't it? Doesn't want the facts to get in the way of his opinion.
That is because it's all about feeding the system. Those pics could have knocked this case right out of the water. No publicity, no GJ, no arrests, starving lawyers. Now these families will spend thousands of dollars to defense attorneys, who probably really don't care about their clients. Check out this link:
http://www.truthinjustice.org/index.htm
Read a horrifying fact sheet on the Court of Appeals on that site. Of course this DA is up for reelection, and has gone against his oath of office(like many of them do these days), to engage in vote pandering.
The justice system needs to be cleaned out.
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