Was Duke’s lacrosse season cancelled, and its coach forced to resign, because of a false rape allegation? It’s too early to say for sure, but there was no DNA match with any of the accused players. Excerpt:
[Defense attoney Joe] Cheshire said the report indicated authorities took DNA samples from all over the alleged victim’s body, including under her fingernails, and from her possessions, such as her cell phone and her clothes.
“They swabbed about every place they could possibly swab from her, in which there could be any DNA,” he said.
District Attorney Mike Nifong has said he would have other evidence to make his case should the DNA analysis prove inconclusive or fail to match a member of the team.
“I believe a sexual assault took place,” Nifong told The News & Observer of Raleigh on Monday. “I’m not saying it’s over. If that’s what they expect, they will be sadly disappointed.”
He would not comment about the results to the AP.
North Carolina Central University, where the alleged victim is a student, said after the results were released that the prosecutor would appear at a campus forum on Tuesday to discuss the case.
“The truth is if you speak to crime lab directors, they will tell you that in only a relatively small number of cases is there any DNA evidence,” said Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project.
Cheshire said even if the alleged attackers used a condom, it’s likely there would have been some DNA evidence found suggesting an assault took place. He said in this case, the report states there was no DNA on her to indicate that she had sex of any type recently.
“The experts will tell you that if there was a condom used they would still be able to pick up DNA, latex, lubricant and all other types of things to show that _ and that’s not here,” Cheshire said.
Stan Goldman, who teaches criminal law, evidence and criminal procedure at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the DNA results don’t mean that Nifong can’t go forward with the case — but the test results make a successful prosecution much harder.
“Isn’t the absence of DNA evidence, given the way the victim has described the crime, in and of itself almost enough to raise a reasonable doubt?” he said. “That’s all the defense has to do.”
Robert Archer, whose son, Breck, is a member of the lacrosse team, said the test results only confirmed for parents what they already knew.
“I know the kids on the team and I know they’re innocent,” said Archer, of East Quogue, N.Y.
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Categories: Sports
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April 11th, 2006 at 9:00:44 am
Maybe she will give the prosecuter a lap dance then steal his car…
If the Durham townies want to show up the spoiled University kids, why not just do what the Stonecutter’s did and beat them in a bike race?
April 11th, 2006 at 9:13:40 am
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m fairly certain there was independent confirmation from neighbors that the kids were screaming racial slurs and obscenities at the girl — which, if this is a false allegation, may have been her motivation (not that that would justify it, obviously). The point is, these DNA tests are reason to wonder about the rape allegation’s validity, but they are NOT reason to mock the “spoiled University kids” line. The evidence seems quite clear that at least some of these kids were world-class racist jerks, or at least world-class jerks who were more than willing to use racial slurs in the course of being assholes.
April 11th, 2006 at 10:17:11 am
When was the last time a team had a season suspended for being assholes? Not that their behavior should be condoned, but these kids got royally screwed by a mob.
April 11th, 2006 at 10:47:24 am
I didn’t say that their season should have been suspended if all they did was act like assholes. I was responding to Russell’s comment seemingly implying that the whole “spoiled University kids” line has been overplayed.
April 11th, 2006 at 11:20:39 am
It has been overplayed and exploited for the gain of an overzealous DA that is trying to use existing tensions in the community to drive a wedge between the town and the students in order to get elected mayor. This is classic race/class baiting and it’s about to blow up in his face.
April 11th, 2006 at 11:32:24 am
But you can’t hold a whole team responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole university? And if the whole university is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Brendan - isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but O’m not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America.
April 11th, 2006 at 12:45:51 pm
The Duke administration really caved on this one. They should have waited for the DNA results before cancelling the entire season and asking the head coach to resign. While a few jerks shouting racial epithets at someone is most certainly despicable and reason for a severe punishment, it is not reasonable grounds to punish an entire team, including membrers uninvolved in the incident, by cancelling the season or to fire a coach with 16 years experience. Duke’s administration has caved to public pressure and now looks impulsive rather than measured, diplomatic, or grounded in a sound sense of propriety. The administration wasn’t doing what appeared to be right, but rather what it thought was necessary in order to save face. Their students and their athletes deserve more.
April 11th, 2006 at 12:46:15 pm
The problem with a case invloving high profile people, the Duke players in this case, who are from different nationalities is that there is an immediate urge to pick a side to be on when all parties involed are guilty. Just like O.J., Mike Jackson and Kobe there is invariably a ground swell by many blacks to “defend” there own and there is a huge belief by white people that “there is no way these good kids did this.”
I work on Wall St. and that has been the party line so far right down the middle eventhough we/me/us know nothing about the accuser or the accused to make those statements. The news companies do not help with the way they report the stories because all I heard from CNN was that “the accused is a black female exotic dancer/stripper” and the accused are all white male lacrosse players. why the qualifiers to race?
it seemed to me that when Kobe was accused no one wanted to talked about the young ladies promiscuous behavior because it did not matter how many people she slept with before or after the alleged incident, yes means yes and no means no.
so why the preocupation with what this young woman does in her spare time? does being a stripper/dancer automatically means she is less a person to claim such an injustice?
there was actually a woman promoting her book on CNN yesterday about her life as, you guessed it: a stripper! the questioner acutally asked her if she paid taxes on the money she made as a stripper. why the news story now on the stripper turned author?
I feel bad for the kids who were not yelling racist things at people of color and I feel bad for the kids who were at the party who did not touch this woman. but I agree that punishment is just because these student-athletes represent Duke University before they anything else. and if one of my children were at a party that was raided by the police and it was found out to have drug and alcohol use, even if my kid did not do anything, my kid would still be placed on punishment becuase he/she knows that they should not be around that type of behavior and enviornment.
April 11th, 2006 at 4:29:20 pm
Do you have any idea how many parties near a college campus (especially in houses where athletes live) get raided on suspicion of underage drinking every weekend? If teams were punished for THAT, we can look forward to a nice BYU vs. Liberty matchup in a national championship game soon
April 11th, 2006 at 4:36:09 pm
we can look forward to a nice BYU vs. Liberty matchup in a national championship game soon
LOL… better not be on a Sunday, both teams would have to forfeit…
April 11th, 2006 at 6:01:52 pm
Ready, shoot, aim….
I hate to say it, but with rape, you’re guilty until proven innocent, this was no different.
April 11th, 2006 at 9:34:09 pm
lol, you’re killing me, Russell!
April 23rd, 2006 at 5:04:24 pm
Stripper claims: She struggled so hard fighting off these three white men that five of her press on nails fell off.
Facts: nails were recovered and no DNA were found under the nails; no scratches were found anywhere on any of the boys. No scratch marks were found anywhere on any of the boys’ bodies.
Stripper claims: three men raped her on the bathroom rug,
Fact:
• No vaginal or seminal fluid, no skin, blood, or hair were found anywhere in the bathroom, bath towels, bath rug, door handle, bathroom floor, basin, water faucet handle, etc.
• A man cannot take off a condom and not get DNA from himself or the female on his hands and not transfer it to everything he touches?
• Accuser claims she was vaginally penetrated; accuser claims she was panicked and thought she was going to die; Where is her vaginal fluid, urine, or blood anywhere in the bathroom? Does her body defy basic physiology capable of keeping any ejaculate from spilling out?
• Accuser claims she was anally penetrated; Where’s her fecal material or scat smears in the bathroom? Does the accuser have inhuman anal sphinter control that prevented any of the ejaculate from dripping out?
• Accuser claims she was orally sodomized; where is DNA from her saliva and tears? Did she lick up every drop and swallowed any evidence?
DNA evidence not connecting the boys to the “criminal stripper” is significant enough, but absolutely no DNA at all is significant in suggesting the rape never occurred at all!
Stripper claim bruises were result of an attack from three boys:
Fact: Time-stamped photos prove stripper arrived bruised and cut while drunk.
Pictures show the stripper performed without the finger nails, and her knees were bruised before she arived.
Nifong stated that a condom was used, if this is true than where is the spermicidal lubricant evidence? Where are the condoms? Where are the condom wrappers? Where is the empty condom box?
If no DNA material were present on the stripper, than why were DNA samples taken? The District Attorney vigorously claimed that these DNA evidence will clear the innocent.
The second stripper stated that she didn’t notice any rape, and when they got back in the car the “accuser� didn’t mention anything about being rape.
Apparently the “second stripper charged with embezzling $25,000� changed her story to conspire with the “lying stripper under-probation-for-larceny-and-trying-to-kill-a-police-officer-with-a-stolen-car� as part of a deal with Nifong to get released from jail, also contacted a public relations firm to “not let this opportunity pas her by and to spin it to my advantage�.
This in the wake of pictures surfacing showing that the “lying stripper� had those fake finger nails missing before the time she lied that a rape occurred.
With the taste of his own foot still lingering in his mouth, District Attorney Mike Nifong has another piece of evidence blow up in his face, I wonder how’s his ulcer is doing?
So would it be his own aura or is it the universe’s way of getting back at Nifong for destroying these young boys lives?
It would be funny if Nifong’s ulcer leads to a colonoscopy, or would it be “ironicâ€? or “poetic justiceâ€? that he screws 47 boys over a false rape claim and have to take a 36 inch colonoscopy tube up his @ss for his part in the fiasco he created.
Lets not forget that not only that there lacks any DNA evidence of the boys, but there’s an absolute absence of DNA from her who claims she was raped vaginally, anally, and orally… why wasn’t any of HER vaginal, urine, blood, sweat, fecal, saliva, or tears not found anywhere in the bathroom? Nifong claims that condoms could have been used, then where are the condoms? The condom wrappers, the condom box, the spermicidal evidence from the rape kit?
Some feminist claim the boys were drunk and where so overwhelmed with excitement that they couldn’t ejaculate- not even one, obviously these women have never had sex with a 19 year old male or any male.
Finally, don’t forget the three boys who lived in the house agreed to be questioned by the police for over six hours, and volunteered to a lie detector test. When the boys were told to surrender DNA samples, none called their parents r tried to block the order, they complied because they new the “stripper with the criminal record� was lying. These are not the actions of guilty boys, but Nifong claimed that they were all covering up for each other and will charge each of them with aiding and abetting because the only information they had is that no rape occurred.
These boys were and continue to be put through hell by these criminal strippers and an unscrupulous DA. Hopefully these three will be held accountable for the racial riots pending the acquittal of these innocent boys.
Below is the text of the e-mail sent by Kim Roberts to 5W Public Relations in New York. Roberts, an exotic dancer, accompanied the woman accusing members of the Duke University men’s lacrosse team of raping her the night of March 13.
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 2:21 PM
To: Ronn Torossian
Subject: duke lacrosse scandal
Hi!
My name is Kim and I am involved in the Duke Lacrosse scandal. Although I am no celebrity and just an average citizen, I’ve found myself in the center of one of the biggest stories in the country. 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. I am determined not to let any negative publicity about my life overtake me. I’m so confused as to who to talk to for relevant advice and I hope that you can return my e-mail. If you cannot help, do you know of any names and numbers I can call?
Thanks for your time,
Kim Roberts
Stripper, Model, Escort, Witness
Rape shields were created in the 1970s to protect the alleged “victim� from having her reputation ruined by baseless assumptions, unfair judgments, public humiliation, and character assassinations, but any of this could describe what’s happening to every member of the lacrosse team.
Irresponsible “special interest groups� have held protests everyday holding the name and pictures of anyone on the lacrosse team, to having their pictures and hate slogans pasted all over school. The actions of these groups against these men are nothing short of harassment and unfair character assassination.
Media hungry District Attorney Mike Nifong stated he is positive a rape has occurred, but he isn’t sure if it’s by the members of the lacrosse team, yet he obtained an order to get DNA samples from only the members of the team, then he stated on a national news program that the lacrosse team has a “rowdy� reputation on campus – obviously playing up to sexist stereotyping of jocks to further play his case for the media. As Nifong continues to publicly massacre the characters out his case for public consumption, he claims that the team is “stonewalling the investigation� because they claim not to have any knowledge of what transpired, but is Nifong now believing the men to be telling the truth as he recently changed his tune stating that even if the DNA evidence clears these boys that he’ll have other evidence.
Opportunistic political groups have descended on Duke’s campus using unscrupulous methods to get media attention at the expense of innocent young men who happen to be on the lacrosse team. Young men who were too recently, only boys not yet ready to handle this ugly side of the world. In today’s climate, we need the rape shield laws extended to protect all the innocent, including those who just happen to get in the way of media hungry district attorneys and opportunistic political groups.
District Attorney Mike Nifong’s should be held accountable for the irresponsible actions he’s taken in this rape investigation.
The boys are being tried in the national media before there is any charge are made. Nifong stated that someone else could have assaulted the 27 year old stripper, yet he publicly damned the men’s lacrosse team and only the men’s lacrosse team as gang rapist, and still not knowing whether or not the “alleged victim� was telling the truth, or if the three men sought are on the team, Nifong claims the team is stonewalling to protect its own.
In response, daily protest are held with hate comments made directly to the lacrosse teammates, pictures of the teammates with rape slogans are plastered all over Duke’s campus, and now gang members are driving by the east campus threatening students.
Nifong’s circus-like antics to perform for the national media has put the whole campus in danger.
Nifong proclaimed in the national media that the DNA sweep of 46 boys would find the guilty and clear the innocent. DNA tests prove that the boys of the lacrosse team were telling the truth, but Nifong wants to go ahead with the case only weeks before his election against a woman and a black man. There should be laws in place to prevent unscrupulous politician like District Attorney Mike Nifong from bulldozing over 47 innocent boys just to bask in the international media spot-light.
August 5th, 2006 at 3:33:59 pm
Comparing LAX case to that of Scottsboro Nine
I am a college instructor who teaches criminal justice and a criminal defense attorney. In my entire career I have never seen such a bizarre and unfair case as the one against three Duke lacrosse players.
I teach a class about a similar case in American history, the Scottsboro Nine. In March 1931, a group of nine black teen-agers was charged with rape on incredibly flimsy evidence in Scottsboro, Ala. The nine were originally charged with the rape of two white women. Even after one woman testified that she lied about the rape, the nine teens continued to face rape charges and the threat of death by execution.
In the Scottsboro case, the two women were part-time prostitutes, but that didn’t matter, nor did it matter that at least one of the boys was known to be physically unable to have sex, and two of the boys were only 13. Like Durham, the real issue was race.
In Scottsboro, nine young men were wrongly charged and condemned because they were black, and today the Duke lacrosse players have, in my opinion, been wrongly charged and condemned because they are white and the alleged victim is black.
The one constant with respect to the two cases is racism. I often ask my students if it possible for blacks to discriminate against whites in the same type of mindless ignorance as the KKK or the way the mob went after the Scottsboro Nine. The answer I receive is yes, and my students point to Durham as proof.
JOSEPH R. GUTHEINZ JR
Houston
May 20, 2006
Many prominent folks in Durham supported the candidacy of Mike Nifong for district attorney, none more distinguished than law professor Robinson Everett. His column of May 12, “Try a lie detector test for alleged victim” is sage advice. Given the accuser’s troubled history of crying “rape,” according to law enforcement officials, one might reasonably ask why Nifong did not administer such a test when she first made these allegations some two months ago. The job of prosecutor is not just to seek indictments; it is to seek justice. The suggestion that the accuser be given a lie detector test is not just good advice, it is an exit strategy for a prosecutor whose case now appears to be hopelessly lost.
GRAHAM MARLETTE
Durham
May 20, 2006
No-case Nifong
Once again District Attorney Mike Nifong has been shown to be an arrogant individual who apparently cares more about publicity and getting votes than he does about seeing that justice is served. If we the public are getting the right information from the press and the defense attorneys, Nifong does not have a case.
It appears to me that Nifong erroneously opened his mouth in an irresponsible manner initially in order to obtain votes and is now too arrogant and egotistical to admit his mistake. So he has chosen to continue with a case that as it stands now would render a not guilty verdict by any impartial jury. I only hope that if this case goes to trial that the jury is not made up of people who are out to get the “well-to-do white boys from the north.”
Nifong’s conduct does not say much for our justice system here in Durham and/or for his qualifications for the DA position. Too bad that all Durham registered voters did not have the option of voting on the DA position. No, I have not predetermined that these boys are not guilty but, if Nifong has no more than has been evident so far, I also could not beyond any reasonable doubt say they are guilty. I will say that many things concerning this matter stink and I pray that the real truth comes out at some point.
R. DEWEESE
Durham
May 20, 2006
Bigoted support
Alas, I graduated from college a few years ahead of the Myspace and Facebook crazes. But recently I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Being a Durham resident, I searched on Myspace for message boards about the Duke lacrosse case, curious to read how my peers had weighed in. Of five groups, four backed the lacrosse players. Supporting them in principle does not concern me — they are indeed innocent until proven guilty. But the content of the messages I read were shocking: “I think some poor, black girl was pissed at the rich, white kids and decided she would try and take them down. … I’m not racist, but these are the kind of things that make people that way.” “…Colin Finnerty wudnt [sic] do such a thing especially coming from such a good family.” “Once this case gets tossed out like it should, they should throw [the accuser] in jail for being a waste [of] humanity.” Such comments were unfortunately not exceptions to the rule. According to these folks, people can be “driven” to racism; kids from “good” (aka wealthy) families don’t do “such things,” and the accuser is a “waste of humanity.” What happened at that party I do not know. But I am sure of this: no woman deserves such a verbal gauntlet of ignorance as I read today. To my generation: resorting to bigotry, classism and hatred is not the way to go. Get real and grow up.
KRISTINE DEKU
No Duke players wore bands saying ‘innocent’
“Reprehensible,” “astonishing” and “shame” are just some of the words Earl Holt used in his guest column [Forum, June 1] to describe the audacity of Duke women’s lacrosse team members wearing sweatbands saying “innocent” in the recent NCAA national semifinal game. In fact, as your editorial pointed out on May 30, no Duke player wore such a sweatband. Some of the women did wear bands with the uniform numbers of the three indicted male Duke players.
Others wore bands saying “No regrets, No excuses,” the motto of the men’s 2005-2006 season. In both cases, women players made a personal choice to show support for their friends, and they chose language decidedly different from what Holt rails against. Writing (and publishing) a column based on such a fundamental inaccuracy, is … well, I’ll just leave it at “astonishing.”
The writer is senior vice president for public affairs and government relations at Duke University.
JOHN BURNESS
Durham
It’s all about race
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The mentality of those who have railroaded the three Duke lacrosse players can be illustrated no better than with the gross analogy put forth by Kim Brummell in her July 16 letter. Like her hero Mike Nifong, she operates without facts. The film “A Time To Kill” told a story of KKK hoodlums who raped and beat a pre-adolescent black child and left her for dead. Her father was found not guilty for killing them because his reaction was so understandable in such a circumstance. Let’s do a 180-degree turn and get back to reality in Durham. The strippers in the lacrosse case are not innocent children and have extensive criminal histories of their own. Mike Nifong is certainly no actor. If he had that craft at his disposal perhaps most of the public would not have been so repulsed when he told a crowd on his campaign trail that he wasn’t going to let it be said that a black woman can be raped by privileged white men at Duke University and get away with it in Durham, N.C. The heck this case isn’t about race. That’s all it’s about. It sure isn’t about facts and evidence. Using the film “A Time To Kill” and suggesting that it has any relationship to the Duke lacrosse case is inciteful idiocy and tailor-made for the race-baiters living in “Nifong Land.” There’s an Al Pacino film called “And Justice For All.” I and many others will need to employ no dramatic license to say that its script will be played out in this case. All “cosmic justice” seekers look elsewhere.
DEBRAH CORRELL
Chapel Hill
July 24, 2006
It’s all about race
——————————————————————————–
The mentality of those who have railroaded the three Duke lacrosse players can be illustrated no better than with the gross analogy put forth by Kim Brummell in her July 16 letter. Like her hero Mike Nifong, she operates without facts. The film “A Time To Kill” told a story of KKK hoodlums who raped and beat a pre-adolescent black child and left her for dead. Her father was found not guilty for killing them because his reaction was so understandable in such a circumstance. Let’s do a 180-degree turn and get back to reality in Durham. The strippers in the lacrosse case are not innocent children and have extensive criminal histories of their own. Mike Nifong is certainly no actor. If he had that craft at his disposal perhaps most of the public would not have been so repulsed when he told a crowd on his campaign trail that he wasn’t going to let it be said that a black woman can be raped by privileged white men at Duke University and get away with it in Durham, N.C. The heck this case isn’t about race. That’s all it’s about. It sure isn’t about facts and evidence. Using the film “A Time To Kill” and suggesting that it has any relationship to the Duke lacrosse case is inciteful idiocy and tailor-made for the race-baiters living in “Nifong Land.” There’s an Al Pacino film called “And Justice For All.” I and many others will need to employ no dramatic license to say that its script will be played out in this case. All “cosmic justice” seekers look elsewhere.
DEBRAH CORRELL
Chapel Hill
July 24, 2006
Referencing the astute observation that District Attorney Mike Nifong made during his press conference today about political appointments, he affirmed: “I am struck by the irony that this group of citizens wants to use this procedure to make an end run around the electorate now,” Nifong said. “I believe that Durham’s district attorney should be selected by the voters of Durham, not by the governor.”
I hope Nifong was listening to himself when he said those words, because Nifong ironically embodies the truth of that very mistake. Look at the mess we have been saddled with when the governor appointed the current DA.
ROBERT MICHAEL PANOFF
Durham
August 4, 2006