Posted on 12/04/2008 2:59:16 PM PST by abb
A federal judge on Thursday rejected the appeal of fallen prosecutor Mike Nifong to keep his case in bankruptcy court.
The ruling opens the door for the three exonerated lacrosse players to again pursue malicious prosecution allegations against the former district attorney.
In October 2007, Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann filed suit against Nifong, the city of Durham and its police department. The players claimed they suffered personal injury and emotional distress while the prosecutor, police and city pushed ahead with a gang-rape case that was flawed from the start.
In their civil suit, the players allege the concealment and fabrication of evidence, the utterance of false public statements, witness tampering and obstruction of justice.
In a hearing Thursday before James A. Beaty, the federal district court judge assigned to the case, Jim Craven, the lawyer representing Nifong, disputed the players’ claims of personal injury.
It was because of those claims that a federal bankruptcy court judge decided this spring to send the case back to federal District Court, where such issues are usually decided.
Nifong filed for bankruptcy protection on Jan. 15, a legal maneuver that put the players’ case on hold for months.
In the bankruptcy filing, Nifong listed assets of $243,898 and the potential debt of $180.3 million — including $30 million to each of the lacrosse players who had sued him at the time.
Bankruptcy rules would not have protected Nifong if a judge found that he willfully and maliciously prosecuted the players. So attorneys for the players argued that those legal matters should be heard first.
Only three members of the 2006 Duke lacrosse team have not filed suit.
The players spent nearly 13 months fighting charges that were dropped in April 2007 by state Attorney General Roy Cooper.
Cooper took the unusual additional step of specifically declaring them innocent of the crimes alleged by an escort service dancer hired to perform at a lacrosse team party in March 2006
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I want to see that POS homeless and sleeping in a gutter.
Send the sumb!tch to jail.
Good. I hope they get every penny he has.
Is that the new PC term for stripper?
Hang him. The slow way.
“I hope they get every penny he has.”
And every other penny he ever gets in the future...
Teach him a lesson he’ll NEVER forget!
(i.e., Do your job, but don’t let it get personal.)
Wasn’t Nifong a candidate for AG for Obama?
Great news, this move by Nifong didn’t work.
And I just like to tell you some people here think those of us that defended the Duke lacrosse are racist.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2142581/posts?page=65#65
Had he succeeded in ‘railroading’ them into prison, they would have served, collectively, decades. There is something wrong when the State allows him off after he ‘criminally conspired’ to deprive them of their liberty for a crime that he knew or should have known was ‘fabricated out of whole cloth’. He should be in prison for at least a percentage of the sentence he tried to get for them...
Now there needs to be a finding of willful and malicious prosecution. Without such a finding the creep will be back in bankruptcy Court begging for mercy.
I want to see Nifong at some busy intersection with a tin can and a cardboard sign “former corrupt District Attorney will help fill out Will Kits for pocket change”.
I think so. More specifically, stripper Crystal Gail Mangum.
Nifong belongs in jail....for life.
Is that the new PC term for stripper?
Sorta. But it also means they don't have to print the name of the human trash stripper,
CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM
thereby holding her up to ridicule.
>>>>>>>an escort service dancer hired to perform at a lacrosse team party
>>Is that the new PC term for stripper?
PC for “prostitute who dances first”.
“stripper Crystal Gail Mangum.”
DNA Collection Site operator, Crystal Gail Mangum!
>>>>>for a crime that he knew or should have known was ‘fabricated out of whole cloth’. <<<<<<<
Jeepers. Wasn’t it Nifong himself who demanded fabrication of the DNA reports?
Looks as if he knew.
I’m sure the book by the “victim” didn’t sell more than 10 copies, but if that bitch made a dime off of it, I hope those boys get it....she thought she could scream rape because they had money and that she’d get paid off to go away....she messed with the wrong folks!!!!
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