Posted on 04/21/2006 12:56:01 AM PDT by OakOak
Edited on 04/21/2006 2:52:00 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
At first, a stripper who performed at a Duke University lacrosse team party doubted the story of a colleague who told police she was dragged into a bathroom and raped.
Now, Kim Roberts isn't so sure.
"I was not in the bathroom when it happened, so I can't say a rape occurred - and I never will," Roberts told The Associated Press Thursday in her first on-the-record interview. But after watching defense attorneys release photos of the accuser, and upset by the leaking of both dancers' criminal pasts, she said she has to "wonder about their character."
"In all honesty, I think they're guilty," she said. "And I can't say which ones are guilty ... but somebody did something besides underage drinking. That's my honest-to-God impression."
Attorneys for the 46 players have aggressively proclaimed the players' innocence, citing DNA tests during a public campaign that has included describing and releasing photos from the party.
Those photos, the defense maintains, show the accuser was both injured and impaired when she arrived, and also support the claim that one of the two players who has been indicted would not have had enough time to participate in any assault before he left the party. The district attorney has said he also hopes to charge a third suspect in the case.
The attorneys claim Roberts at first told a member of the defense team that she did not believe the accuser's allegations. They say she has changed her story to gain favorable treatment in a criminal case against her. They note she also e-mailed a New York public relations firm, asking in her letter for advice on "how to spin this to my advantage."
"We believe ... her story has been motivated by her own self-interest," said attorney Bill Thomas, who represents one of the uncharged players. "I think that a jury will ultimately have to decide the question of her credibility."
Roberts, 31, was arrested on March 22 - eight days after the party - on a probation violation from a 2001 conviction for embezzling $25,000 from a photofinishing company in Durham where she was a payroll specialist, according to documents obtained by the AP.
On Monday, the same day a grand jury indicted lacrosse players Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty, a judge agreed to a change so that Roberts would no longer have to pay a 15 percent fee to a bonding agent. District Attorney Mike Nifong signed a document saying he would not oppose the change.
"It seems she is receiving very favorable financial treatment for what she is now saying," Thomas said.
Mark Simeon, Roberts' attorney, said the bond conditions were changed because Roberts is not considered a flight risk. Nifong, who hasn't spoken with reporters about the case in weeks, didn't return a call seeking comment.
Roberts' testimony could be vital during any trial of the two sophomores, indicted on charges of first-degree rape, sexual offense and kidnapping.
Other than lacrosse players and the accuser, a 27-year-old student at a nearby university, Roberts is believed to be the only other person at the March 13 party.
Roberts said Thursday she does not remember Seligmann's face, but said she recalls seeing Finnerty - whom she described as the "little skinny one."
"I was looking him right in the eyes," she said.
Although she would not talk extensively about the party, she confirmed some of what the other dancer told police - including that the women initially left the party after one of the players threatened to sodomize the women with a broomstick.
The players' attorneys have said their clients were angry and demanded a refund when the women stopped dancing, but Roberts disputed that.
"They ripped themselves off when they started hollering about a broomstick," she said.
The accuser told police that the women were coaxed back into the house with an apology, at which point they were separated. That's when she said she was dragged into a bathroom and raped, beaten and choked for a half hour.
Later, police received a 911 call from a woman complaining that she had been called racial slurs by white men gathered outside the home where the party took place. The defense has said it believes the second dancer at the party made that call.
Roberts then drove the accuser - whom she reportedly had just met that night - to a grocery store and asked a security guard to call 911. The accuser was described later by a police officer as "just passed-out drunk."
The defense timeline is backed up by a cab driver who said Seligmann called for a ride at 12:14 a.m., and was picked up five minutes later. The defense argues that if the dancers were performing around midnight, Seligmann would not have had enough time to participate in the 30-minute assault described by the accuser.
The cabbie, Moez Mostafa, also said he saw a woman leaving the party in anger, and overheard someone say, "She just a stripper. She's going to call the police."
"She looked, like, mad," he said of the woman. "In her face, the way she walked, the way she talked, she looked like mad."
On Thursday, authorities released warrants detailing their search earlier this week of Finnerty's dorm room. Seized during the search were a newspaper article and an envelope addressed to Finnerty.
Also Thursday, 5W Public Relations, a New York firm that specializes in "crisis communication," distributed an e-mail signed "The 2nd Dancer," and Roberts confirmed she sent it after learning the AP knew her identity.
"I've found myself in the center of one of the biggest stories in the country," she wrote. "I'm worried about letting this opportunity pass me by without making the best of it and was wondering if you had any advice as to how to spin this to my advantage."
Ronn Torossian, 5W's president, said he replied, but got no response.
"If this person is indeed who they say they are, I would be happy to speak with her," said Torossian, whose firm has represented the likes of Sean "Diddy" Combs, Ice Cube and Lil' Kim.
Roberts, like the accuser a divorced single mother who is black, took umbrage at the notion that she should not try to make something out of her experience. She's worried that once her name and criminal record are public, no one will want to hire her.
"Why shouldn't I profit from it?" she asked. "I didn't ask to be in this position ... I would like to feed my daughter."
Roberts is bracing for an all-out attack, but said she's almost past caring.
"Don't forget that they called me a damn n####," she said. "She (the accuser) was passed out in the car. She doesn't know what she was called. I was called that. I can never forget that."
Roberts, 31, was arrested on March 22 - eight days after the party - on a probation violation from a 2001 conviction for embezzling $25,000 from a photofinishing company in Durham where she was a payroll specialist, according to documents obtained by the AP.
"Skinny little one"? From the tv footage, sure the guy's thin but very tall, I think I read somewhere he was 6'3"--if that's so, not "little" at all. How tall is Kim, 7 feet?/sarc.
No thanks. I prefer to BLOAT!
Sounds like the girls wanted to extort more money from the "rich" kids families. After, she got raped, roughed upat an earlier gig. And, that they didn't have their story straight because oone or both of the girls was sloppy drunk. Add this night mare alleged rape case to a prostituting (sic) attorney in a highly contested election. Oye!
I know I read about the case. 25,000 embezzlement in Durham from a Photofinishing company. I'm in the area and it was in the news. Hopefully, someone will find it. Or, will it be like the CarJacking by Crystal that others read about but nothing on-line now.
Nifo is a total Nut. You don't go on National TV and point the finger on the word of two convicts that lied to your investigator a couple times already. I'd bet the family Dog that Kim had a little plan to walk away with the entire take for the night.
She threw the shoe out the window after dumping Crystal at Kroger. This makes much more sense than these kids, which certainly don't care for the strippers after the verbal altercation - keeping the shoe as the memento of sex crime.
Nifong is certifiable !! Now, I believe he screwed up the Photo ID too. Hard to believe, but this guys judgement is so outrageous!!
.
Don't you dare question the veracity of Nifong's paid witness. ;)
Allure escort agency sends two convicts out to a college Frat-house of well-to-do kids.
This is like a movie. Everyone had a angle. Kim and her girlfriend probably didn't dance for guys with too many assets - I willing to bet.
Like her other e-mail... She was wondering how she could take advantage of THIS OPPORTUNITY!
Doesn't Locomotive Breath have access to the N&O archives as a subscriber? Presumably it would have been both in the Herald Sun and the N&O.
What is Geraldo going to say now, he's gone on National TV twice this week and called the players everything but students. He's misleading the country about the event.
Why does O'Reilly allow him to do it? Probably because he doesn't know sh** about the case.
Apparently, neither O'Reilly or Geraldo know about the movie American Psycho and where the line came from in that e-mail.
They both said last night that e-mail showed the players were seriously demented - dangerously so.
.
Anybody here who is a lifetime member or who is willing to join?
Just like they had Crystal's Criminal record and they sat on it for two weeks.. You know the N&O and DurhamHerald had this info for some time.
The News&Observer will print it tommorow on page 9 of the sports section.
Locomotive Breath has been all over the N&O.
They don't care to hear from him anymore!
Bring out the tar!
Herald-Sun doing best to poke holes in alibis:
http://www.herald-sun.com/durham/4-726709.html
/excerpt:
Lacrosse players' alibis not 'foolproof'
DURHAM -- They contend they have alibis, and SBI tests show their DNA didn't match any found on an exotic dancer.
But two Duke lacrosse players may have an uphill battle against allegations that they raped the woman last month at an off-campus party.
That was the assessment Thursday of Willis Whichard, dean of Campbell University Law School and a former N.C. Supreme Court justice.
Whichard said Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong "has got to have something" or he wouldn't have obtained indictments this week against the two players: Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, 19, of Garden City, N.Y.
He also said, the alibis are not "foolproof evidence."
Defense lawyers say there is documentation to prove that Seligmann made cell phone calls beginning at 12:07 a.m. March 14, that he was picked up by a cab at 12:19 a.m. and that he was at a Ninth Street Wachovia ATM at 12:24 a.m., where he was photographed by a security camera.
The lawyers, citing pictures they say were taken by an unidentified student at the house party, contend the only plausible time for the alleged rape was between 12:10 and 12:30 a.m. Police and prosecutors, however, have not publicly pinpointed the time of the alleged attack.
Finnerty contends he was at a Mexican restaurant near Ninth Street, several blocks from 610 N. Buchanan Blvd., where the party and alleged rape occurred.
(snip)
Former Durham Public Defender Bob Brown said Thursday that prosecutors might be in trouble if they don't have stronger evidence than that revealed so far.
"I believe the DA has got to have something better than this woman's identification," he said. "He better have something other than her identification. But if he had it, I suppose he would have had somebody arrested immediately instead of waiting until this week."
/end excerpt
You got that Right ! Lawyers are already upset at his Media tour and his illegal interrogations.
I said in the beginning, the women in the 911 call was manipulating the 911 operator. She was absolutely fine and twice on-demand she feigns crying and then goes right back to being absolutely allright and then ends an emergency call with a calm - Thanks Baby!
- Two convict trash strippers see an opportunity and the Nat'l Media bites and Bites HARD!
D.A. Adam Schiff to Executive Assistant D.A. Jack McCoy, "Don't you people ever look at a calendar?"
Evidently, sometimes you do what ever you're desperate enough to do for a vote. He must know something about who will likely vote and why.
The Media will NEVER be satisfied the boys didn't do this. They just won't.
As someone once said about Jimmy Taylor, the Green Bay Packer fullback, "he went through full years of college untouched by education".
The woman couldn't bring themselves to do it. After all, they're Mothers and women don't lie!
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