Posted on 10/30/2012 6:26:50 PM PDT by abb
10.30.12 - 08:41 pm By Ray Gronberg
gronberg@heraldsun.com; 919-419-6648
DURHAM – A new court filing purporting to be from Crystal Mangum says she can supply evidence in a Duke lacrosse lawsuit that she was paid, up front, to set up Duke University’s 2005-06 men’s lacrosse team.
The filing surfaced on Tuesday, a day after federal court clerks in Greensboro received it from the U.S. Postal Service.
It was styled as a motion by Mangum, acting as her own lawyer, asking that she be allowed to intervene in the civil-rights lawsuit that exonerated lacrosse players David Evans, Colin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann are pursuing against the city. It was impossible Tuesday to verify whether Mangum had indeed filed the motion.
The motion’s “statement of facts” claimed that Mangum had been a slave to a “ring of sexually perverted politicians” and was paid $50,000 by former District Attorney Mike Nifong to attend the lacrosse team’s now-infamous 2006 party and “fake a rape.”
“The rape never happened, this was a plot for Nifong to make a big arrest before he was re-elected,” the motion said.
It included several other, seemingly random statements claiming that Mangum was the victim of a CIA behavioral engineering program, that she’s now being framed “by the illuminati and New World Order” for murder and that she loves and plans to marry James Eagan Holmes, who is accused in Colorado movie theater mass slayings.
A reaction directly from Nifong was unavailable, but his lawyer, James Craven, through a secretary called the filing “the most remarkable legal document [he’d] ever seen.”
Craven also relayed word that he’d mailed a copy of the filing to Nifong on Tuesday, as the former prosecutor “may not even have seen it yet.”
Mangum is acting as her own attorney as she tries to fend off a murder charge in the stabbing death of Reginald Daye, 46. She recently sacked as her counsel Durham lawyer Woody Vann, who nonetheless has agreed to serve as an in-court adviser to her when the case comes to trial.
Vann, in a voicemail message, said he hadn’t heard anything about a federal court filing by his former client until The Herald-Sun called him Tuesday to inquire about it.
There was reason to question the authenticity of the filing.
Mangum’s signature on the first page of the motion had an unusual shadow behind it, perhaps a document-scanning artifact, that inspired questions in some quarters.
The envelope that federal court clerks received the filing in was postmarked in Philadelphia and gave as its return address the address of the county jail in “Durhum.”
The Philadelphia postmark and the signature were both dated Oct. 27. Mangum has been in the Durham County Jail since being arrested in connection with Daye’s April 2011 death.
It appeared few involved in the case were taking seriously the filing’s claims, be they about a $50,000 payoff or other matters.
One of Seligmann’s attorneys, Richard Emery, said it suggests Mangum is “as delusional now as she has been from the outset of this case.”
Another supporter of the former players, Brooklyn College history professor K.C. Johnson, in a blog posting called the $50,000 claim an “absurd assertion.” He also noted the filing’s claims would put Mangum at cross-purposes with allies who’ve publicly supported both her and Nifong.
Mangum’s mental health has long been a question. Criminal-defense lawyers for the lacrosse players and State Attorney General Roy Cooper in 2007 strongly hinted that her medical history didn’t help her credibility.
She received a psychiatric evaluation in connection with her current charges. But after reviewing its findings, Superior Court Judge Jim Hardin in December ruled she was competent to stand trial.
Fixed it.
Thanks for the ping!
As much as I dislike Nifong,(and that’s putting it politely), Crystal Mangum is nothing but a deluded liar. The woman is insane.
Reverend Sharpton, please pick up the nearest courtesy phone.
Reverend Sharpton, please pick up the nearest courtesy phone.
This story is tougher to kill than a cockroach in an outhouse. Every so often it crawls out into the light and then disappears. What next?
save for later
Put that whack job in a padded room and muzzle her...
This chick is crazy. Did Nifong also pay her to have sex with at least 4 other men earlier in the day of the alleged rape at the party? She’s a whore and she was looking for an easy pay out from some “rich white boys”. Nifong, well Nifong is a Democrat who was making a name the easiest way they know.
I call BS. It was a perfect storm not a pre set plan.
He's a Democrat.
LOL that’s the best laugh I’ve had all day!
lol....why am I not the least bit surprised??
I’d call her “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” but that would probably be seen as racist by her supporters because Cocoa Puffs are brown.
Having been on a jury a few years back and seen first-hand how incompetent the Durham PD and the Durham County DA’s office both are, anything is possible. This whackjob may yet walk free from an open-and-shut murder case where she’s representing her own crazy self in court.
}:-)4
Durham responds to purported Mangum filing.
See here the document.
http://lincolnparishnewsonline.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/110112-mangum-responses.pdf
Mangum denies new lacrosse-case filing
11.01.12 - 03:25 pm
By Ray Gronberg
gronberg@heraldsun.com; 919-419-6648
DURHAM – Crystal Mangum on Thursday denied any role in a federal court filing that claimed she can supply evidence that she was paid to set up Duke University’s 2005-06 men’s lacrosse team.
“No, that’s not from me,” she said after looking over the document. “It’s pretty far-fetched.”
Mangum’s comments came during an interview conducted in the visitors section of the Durham County Jail, three days after federal court clerks added the filing to the record of a civil-rights lawsuit filed against the city by former Duke players David Evans, Colin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann.
The filing was styled as “pro se” request by Mangum, acting as her own attorney, to intervene in the suit to say that she’d been paid $50,000, up front, by former District Attorney Mike Nifong to “fake a rape” at a lacrosse team party.
The idea was that Nifong could use the resulting case to help his 2006 campaign for “re-election” as DA, the filing said.
The document also claimed Mangum was the victim of a CIA behavioral engineering program, that’s she’s being framed for murder by “the illuminati and the New World Order” and that she planned to marry Colorado mass-murder suspect James Eagan Holmes.
But there were reasons from the outset to question the authenticity of the filing, among others that it was postmarked in Philadelphia and had an odd signature.
During Thursday’s interview, Mangum specifically denied that the signature was hers.
“Could criminal charges be brought?” she asked. “Because this signature is not mine.”
The signature in fact differed from that on many of the publicly available documents Mangum is known to have signed – including the statement she gave Durham police in the spring of 2006 after alleging, falsely, that she’d been raped at a lacrosse team party.
Mangum’s signature in previous documents is in a loose cursive. One common but not consistent flourish is that the cross of the T in her first name overlaps the closing L.
The signature on the Evans-case filing is more print than cursive. The cross of the T in her first name ends halfway above the following A. The signer also appeared to spell Mangum’s last name as “Magnum.”
Her police-statement signatures always clearly placed the N in her last name before the G.
The differences in the styling of the signatures are pronounced enough that they contributed to skepticism about the filing even on Liestoppers, an Internet forum for supporters of the lacrosse players who generally have voiced disdain for their former accuser.
In addition to denying authorship or having signed the filing, Mangum also denied its substance.
“I definitely was not paid secretly $50,000,” she said, adding that she hadn’t met Nifong before the lacrosse case and hasn’t spoken to him since February 2007.
She also said she doesn’t know anyone in Philadelphia and asked, “Who is James Eagan Holmes?” She seemed bemused when told of the reasons for his notoriety.
Mangum’s former attorney, Woody Vann, had previously voiced doubts about the authenticity of the filing.
“I think it’s just a hoax,” Vann said. “If it is [a hoax] and if a federal judge can find out who it is, they’re in for a world of hurt. Federal judges don’t like to be toyed with.”
Two Mangum supporters, Sidney Harr and Victoria Peterson, likewise denounced the document.
“Believe me, Crystal did not file anything in the ongoing Duke lacrosse case,” Harr said. “The accusations are baloney, and should not be given any credibility, except to state that someone is trying to libel her.”
The filing is “bogus,” Peterson added. “There’s no way.”
During Thursday’s interview Mangum – who’s facing a murder charge in connection with the April 2011 stabbing death of Reginald Daye, 46 – said she’s begun working with a defense attorney from Louisburg. She recently sacked Vann.
Mangum also said she hasn’t been questioned by lawyers working on the civil-rights lawsuits players filed in 2007 and 2008.
The next move belongs to lawyers for the city and the players, who can give U.S. District Court Judge James Beaty Jr. their opinion on whether he should allow the requested intervention.
On Thursday, city lawyers turned in a statement advising Beaty they “do not intend to respond” to the supposed Mangum filing “unless and until directed otherwise by the court.” They added that the filing lacked some elements judges would ordinarily require.
Of course we followed it here and in other places. I believe he moderates what’s left at Liestoppers along with the nursery rhyme maven, Joan Foster.
Business must not be booming as the person I believe you speak of moderates Liestoppers under many assumed names, i.e., Mason, Lodge Pro, etc. Perhaps I am misinformed, but for months after the case was decided by the AG and before the lawsuits, he started multiple threads outlining the evidence of the frame by Durham police. I would suggest he is a big fish in a little pond and got lucky with the case.
No, not the same person. He can barely access the Internet on a computer. Trust me, I know. GREAT detective; an idiot when it comes to computers.
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