Duke University Suspends Entire Lacrosse Team Due To Rape Allegation

[MrsSpringsteen]

Where did you see her on an interview? I haven't heard that she gave any interviews, but I haven't really been keeping up to date on this situation. Was it local in NC?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

as far as i know the only interview conducted with the woman was by someone from the duke school newspaper, and it wasn't broadcasted on TV, and we still don't know her name.

but we now do have a police recording stating that the woman was "passed-out drunk" and refusing to leave someone else's car in the parking lot of a grocery store...

In a police recording in the hours following the party, an officer describes the woman from the party as "just passed-out drunk."

The taped conversation, obtained by The Associated Press, took place about 1:30 a.m. March 14, about five minutes after a grocery store security guard called 911 to report a woman in the parking lot who would not get out of someone else's car.

The officer gave the dispatcher the police code for an intoxicated person and said the woman was unconscious. When asked whether she needed medical help, the officer said: "She's breathing and appears to be fine. She's not in distress. She's just passed-out drunk."

No charges have been filed, but District Attorney Mike Nifong has said he believes a crime was committed.

Attorneys for the players have said DNA tests failed to connect any players to the alleged attack, and they have urged Nifong to drop his investigation. But several defense attorneys say they expect the district attorney to ask a grand jury Monday to issue charges.

Defense lawyers have said time-stamped photographs taken by the players show that the accuser was drunk and already had injuries when she arrived at the party.

The recording is consistent with "what I have seen of the photo evidence before," attorney Kerry Sutton said. Those photos, she said, showed that she was "way beyond where you would put somebody behind the wheel of a car."

The description of the woman's medical exam -- which Nifong has said is his basis for believing a rape occurred -- does not mention her being drunk. It states only that the woman's injuries and behavior were consistent with having been raped, sexually assaulted and having suffered a traumatic experience.

The woman has told police she and another stripper hired to dance at the party arrived at 11:30 p.m. March 13. The pair reportedly left the house a short time later, fearing for their safety. The accuser told police the two 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.

At 12:53 a.m., 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. The 911 call from the grocery store security guard was placed at 1:22 a.m.

In it, the caller says, "Um, the problem is ... it's a lady in somebody else's car and she will not get out of their car. She's like, she's like intoxicated, drunk or something. She's, I mean, she won't get out of the car, period."

Police spokeswoman Kammie Michael declined to comment on the contents of the radio traffic.

if the woman was in such a state of intoxication, how can she accurately describe the events of that night? esp. considering she claims she was raped in such a close proximity of time to when she was found passed out drunk in someone else's car?

if this woman was raped... which i still believe there is a possability that she was... all of the evidence that's been released points to someone other than the lacrosse players.

unless the DA has some sort of bombshell, smoking gun piece of evidence that they're not telling anyone about, i don't know how any jury would convcit anyone from the duke lax team in this case.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Two 20-year-old Duke University lacrosse players were arrested early Tuesday on charges of raping and kidnapping a stripper hired to dance at an off-campus party.

Reade Seligmann posted a $400,000 bond and Collin Finnerty was in the process of doing so for the same amount, said Col. George Naylor of the Durham County jail. By posting bond, the players avoided making an initial court appearance later in the day.

Earlier, Seligmann, a 6-foot-1 sophomore from Essex Fells, N.J., and Finnerty, a 6-foot-3 sophomore from Garden City, N.Y., were led out of separate police cruisers in handcuffs. One was wearing a suit jacket, the other was in dress shirt and jeans.

Seligmann is "absolutely innocent," said his attorney, Kirk Osborn. "He's doing great. That's all I have to say."

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

this DA better have some real good evidence that he's kept out of the public eye... because with everything that's out there there is no way he'll get a conviction, and with these indictments that could lead to a riot in durham.

i still just hope that justice is, indeed, being done here, and that the DA isn't just continuing to pursue this for political gains in an election year.

 

[Liesje]

this DA better have some real good evidence that he's kept out of the public eye... because with everything that's out there there is no way he'll get a conviction, and with these indictments that could lead to a riot in durham.

Maybe the defendents are eligible for a Grand Jury trial to see whether a crime even occured? I've only followed this case based on what's posted here, but it looks like they were arrested, not indicted?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

the DA went before a grand jury on monday and the grand jury handed down indictments on these two kids. the alleged third attacker has not been charged because the woman cannot identify him.

the defense lawyers say that they have proof that the two people indicted weren't even at the location at the time the raped supposedly took place.

who the hell knows at this point... all i know is that based upon the evidence that's been made public i'd never convict either of these two kids. if there's more evidence that the DA is holding until trial? fine... bring it out, convict them, and let them rot in jail... but nothing like that's been made public yet.

 

[redkat]

if the grand jury handed down an idictment there must be more evidence than has been leaked.

 

[Irvine511]

whether they raped the woman or not (probably not), the guys do sound like major league assholes.

 

[Liesje]

who the hell knows at this point... all i know is that based upon the evidence that's been made public i'd never convict either of these two kids. if there's more evidence that the DA is holding until trial? fine... bring it out, convict them, and let them rot in jail... but nothing like that's been made public yet.

Well if the Grand Jury indicted, then there must be substantial evidence. These kinds of trials can take months and months. If I were the DA and had plenty of evidence, I'd be reluctant to lay it all out in the open because this is a pretty publicized ordeal and if everything is leaked to the press, it will be impossible to even convene an impartial jury.

 

[nbcrusader]

A Grand Jury inictment doesn't mean a more substantial level of evidence exists. It usually signals that the DA wants to avoid a preliminary hearing, where evidence is exposed to the defense earlier in the game.

 

[Liesje]

A Grand Jury inictment doesn't mean a more substantial level of evidence exists. It usually signals that the DA wants to avoid a preliminary hearing, where evidence is exposed to the defense earlier in the game.

But there must at least be enough evidence for the jury to feel a crime was commited?

 

[nbcrusader]

Some evidence to bring a case. A very low hurdle at this point.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

so sayeth interference's official legal counsel.

apparently the indictments were brought against these two boys because of a photo identification by the alleged victim. i do believe the defense wasn't even allowed to present their side at the grand jury hearing... nbcrusader can correct me on that if i'm wrong.

one of the attorney's for the accused has already stated that they have time stampted photos, bank records, cell phone records and the statements of a taxi cab driver that proves that at least one of the boys wasn't even at the party at the time the alleged victim claims the crime took place.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Whether these two (three if the other is indicted) are guilty or not, it is important to think and to talk about the issue of rape and the larger issues surrounding it. Most rape victims are still telling the truth (according to most reports of statistics regarding false accusations) and most still don't even report it. Yes this thread is about this case but the surrounding issues are always there. When you've held someone in your arms who has been raped, it never leaves you. I can only imagine (thankfully) what it is like to have actually been raped. I'm sure we all feel that way lest anyone think I believe otherwise.

Food for thought..

The dark side of fantasies

By Ted Weesner Jr. | April 19, 2006

Tempting though it may be to stash the alleged incident involving the Duke University lacrosse team in a box labeled ''Southern old boys gone wild," we should all be wary of such willed obliviousness. The alleged rape and kidnapping of a stripper hired to dance at an off-campus party could easily play out in any New England college town. As a creative writing teacher at several area universities, it's not hard to see a connection between the fantasies of fiction and the suspended reality that a booze-soaked party invites. Whether in fiction or in group-drink, there's a sense that anything goes: This is the make-believe talking.

Every semester I have the pleasure of witnessing and helping to ferry along earnest, complex, and wonderfully artistic creative efforts. Like many writing teachers, I try to turn my young charges toward material with which they've had some direct experience. A belief of Nabokov's, that by age 10 we have enough raw material to write for a lifetime, helps to illustrate this truth, as does Whitman's mission: to vivify the contemporary fact.

And yet it's not uncommon to encounter rough drafts of stories that traffic in casual misogyny and even outright sadism. It would seem to take only a little toxic extrapolation, including the requisite vacuum of oversight and a dose of the entitled air that athletes and frat boys can feel they breathe, and it's not such a reach to see these dystopias on paper translated into varieties of reality.

In recent weeks I encountered one story where a protagonist imagines beheading a foul-smelling colleague, and another where a character dumps and mistreats his girlfriend because she won't provide the quick access he demands. Almost always these submissions are made by male students; just as unfailingly, these students are smart, polite, and friendly.

Of course the point can be made that males between the ages of 18 and 22 often have dark fantasy lives. And it can also be granted that playing out subversive scenarios can exhilarate, as seen in the work of Hunter S. Thompson, William F. Burroughs, even Eminem. And yet there's a vital difference between art with some perspective or frame and raw displays of brutality. Where those artists' work can strike one as original and innovative, the misanthropic and occasionally repulsive narratives spun out by young, beginning (male) writers almost always smack of someone else's fantasy. Instead of following the useful writing dictum to ''write what you know," they have often stitched together some pastiche of actions and images plucked from sitcoms, movies, and the Internet.

It's actually more difficult not to come across the rough fantasies playing out online. After all, it takes only an errant tap of the return key on ''spam" to find oneself in the midst of a reenacted near-rape. One can only imagine that those Duke lax players and perhaps all of us in lax moments have encountered the bewildering vertigo of having fantasy both made for you and, by its very profuse existence, imbued with legitimacy. What is shocking and morally toxic seeps in, suggesting that it's tolerated and even acceptable. With almost anything fair game in the virtual realm, is it such a leap to see that a band of privileged athletes might think an assault is no big deal, with no real consequences in sight?

No one who has spent any time in a college seminar would dispute that the climate of what is acceptable has changed. Today's students, both male and female, feel more comfortable talking about sex. This is not an unhealthy development. At the same time, shouldn't we make our young people aware of the true dimensions and implications of what the Internet and the broader culture are trying to sell? It may appear cheap, easy, and exhilarating to hit the return key and have wild fantasies dropped whole in your lap. But if we're even some part unaware, the price is much higher.

Ted Weesner Jr. is a writer based in Somerville.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

from abcnews.com

April 19, 2006 — On Monday, they were indicted for allegedly raping and kidnapping a 27-year-old woman at an off-campus party. On Tuesday, they turned themselves in and were released from custody after posting a $400,000 bond. For Duke University sophomore lacrosse players Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, a long legal battle has just begun.

Over the last few days, sources close to the defense have given ABC News an exclusive look at the evidence behind one player's alleged alibi — evidence that includes electronic records, photographs and witness statements. If that material is authentic, it could prove that it was practically impossible for him to rape, kidnap or assault the alleged victim.

Seligmann's argument is simple: He is innocent and he has an alibi. He attended the party that night, but documents, photos and witness testimony show that he wasn't there long enough or at the right time to attack the alleged victim.

Around midnight the night of March 13, Seligmann was already at the party when two women hired from a local escort agency arrived to dance for the boys — $400 each for a two-hour performance. A series of time-stamped photographs viewed by ABC News show the girls dancing at midnight and at 12:02 a.m.

By 12:24 a.m., a receipt reviewed by ABC indicates that Seligmann's ATM card was used at a nearby Wachovia bank. In a written statement to the defense also reviewed by ABC, a cabdriver confirms picking up Seligmann and a friend a block and a half from the party, and driving them to the bank.

What did Seligmann do after leaving the bank? The taxi driver remembers taking him to a drive-thru fast-food restaurant and then dropping him off at his dorm. Duke University records show that Seligmann's card was used to gain entry at 12:46 a.m.

In addition to bolstering Seligmann's alibi, the taxi driver's written testimony provided a rare glimpse of color in an otherwise darkened night.

"I remember those two guys starting enjoying their food inside my car, but I'm glad I end up with a nice tip and fare $25," the taxi driver said in his testimony.

ABC News traced the steps of Seligmann's story, timing how long it took to get from place to place. In repeated trials, the drive between the Wachovia branch and the corner where the cab picked him up took approximately five minutes. This suggests that Seligmann must have left the house by around 12:19 a.m.

So, Seligmann's alibi suggests, he and the alleged victim were in the house together for less than 20 minutes. According to defense sources, based on the alleged victim's affidavit, all of the following would have transpired within that time period: She and her dance partner performed for several minutes, left after feeling threatened by the boys' growing "excited and aggressive," returned after being persuaded by team members to dance some more, and then she was forced into a bathroom, beaten and raped.

Within those same minutes, phone bill records reviewed by ABC show that the defendant's cell phone made at least two outgoing calls.

Seligmann and his co-defendant were presumably among the players identified by the alleged victim last Thursday. According to defense attorneys, the prosecution said the woman picked out two of her alleged attackers with 100 percent certainty and one other attacker with 90 percent certainty while examining pictures. But did Seligmann have the time, much less the will, to commit a violent, sexual crime?

Though he was indicted, Seligmann is presumed innocent until a jury says otherwise. No one knows what evidence District Attorney Mike Nifong will bring as he looks to convict Seligmann and Finnerty. If that conviction occurs, the two young men face mandatory jail time. Whether the evidence above will clear their names — in either a court of law or in the court of public opinion — will become clear in the weeks and months to come.

this kid must multi-task well to have accomplished all that he's alleged to have done in about 19 minutes time... minus the time he took to make a couple of phone calls, of course.

 

[Irvine511]

this kid must multi-task well to have accomplished all that he's alleged to have done in about 19 minutes time... minus the time he took to make a couple of phone calls, of course.

well, he did get into Duke ...

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

DURHAM, N.C. -- The Duke University campus has been divided for weeks by allegations that members of the men's lacrosse team raped a North Carolina Central University student at a team party last month.

But one day after two lacrosse players were formally charged in the case, Duke students united behind the players Wednesday.

Students wore white t-shirts bearing the word "Innocent," and a number of banners were hung outside dorm windows expressing support for Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, the two players charged in the case, as well as the rest of the team.

"The shirts went pretty quickly, and everybody's been really supportive," said Katie Jandal, a Duke senior who helped buy a load of t-shirts from a local Target to create the "Innocent" campaign.

"It's 100 percent obvious to me that these two boys were chosen at random. Once the two names came out, it just showed how crazy this situation is," said Jandal, who knows both Finnerty and Seligmann. "I can't believe in the country you could be arrested and charged for something that you weren't even there when it happened."

 

[nbcrusader]

It is sounding more and more politically motivated. The DA is apparently up for re-election.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I haven't read any articles but I heard a reference on CNN that one of these men (Finnerty I believe) has a conviction or at least an accusation for an assault on a gay man. I would have to research that to confirm that it's true. But of course that won't be allowed in court. I'm quite sure that if this ever goes to trial, her past will be brought in (rape shield laws aside, they always manage to do it somehow). Outside the courtroom they will most certainly do it via the media or however they choose, just like they do in so many other cases. Obviously an assault on a gay man isn't the same as rape (legally) but for me it is a blatant indication of character. I don't make the leap that it means he's guilty of rape, but it does tell me something about him that is far from good.

Not to mention the fact that she has been referred to as a stripper countless times. Yes she does that to earn money, but that's like the elephant in the room that no one wants to bring up. What does her being a stripper have to do with her accusation? Whether the accusation is false or not, that's an interesting issue to consider.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Jeff Bloxsom already has been attacked once by Duke lacrosse player Collin Finnerty. Now he's under siege again.
Bloxsom's brick townhouse in trendy Georgetown has been deluged this week by reporters, photographers and TV cameramen eager to hear about his Nov. 5 run-in with Finnerty, the well-to-do Garden City, L.I., athlete who was one of two Duke lacrosse players to be charged this week in the rape of a black exotic dancer at an off-campus party last month.

Bloxsom's Fairfax, Va., real estate office has been bombarded by phone calls from the media, as has his family, including his parents and grandmother.

"Everybody in the family was glad this was over with. Jeff was able to move on," Bloxsom's attorney Chip Royer told the Daily News yesterday. "Now all of a sudden, it has picked up a much different context as a piece of a much larger news story."

Bloxsom and a friend were walking through Georgetown early on Nov. 5 when Finnerty and two pals yelled derogatory anti-gay slurs at them, according to Washington police reports.

Bloxsom, whom Royer said is not gay and has a girlfriend, shouted back, and Finnerty and his friends crossed the street and attacked the two men. Bloxsom suffered a bruised chin and a busted lip, according to a police report filed two hours after the incident.

In a plea deal, Finnerty agreed to perform community service, pay the victim's medical bills and stay out of trouble for at least six months.

"It's our expectation that everything is back on the table in terms of how the district attorney in Washington will deal with the accused," Royer said.

"This was a case of some words of male bravado being shouted across the street to two guys walking home after dropping off one of their girlfriends," he added. "It was not a case ofgay bashing. That does not diminish it as incident of violence."

unfortunatly in today's youth culture the words "gay" or "fag" are tossed around as petty insults in the same way "asshole" or "dickhead" are. this was not an incident of a hate crime. it was an incident of a few kids being a bunch of assholes.

 

[Irvine511]

[q]"This was a case of some words of male bravado being shouted across the street to two guys walking home after dropping off one of their girlfriends," he added. [/q]


ugh. i mean, fuck you. seriously. (not Headache, this jackass)

would the N-word be words of white bravado? would "bitch" be words of male bravado?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

and this was the lawyer of the victim who said that

i smell a spin off thread.

 

[WildHoneyAlways]

would "bitch" be words of male bravado?

At my school, unfortunately, yes.
We've been battling this problem all year. I'll save it for the spinoff thread.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/14438495.htm

DURHAM - The father of the accuser in the rape case involving Duke University lacrosse players said his daughter was raped with a broomstick during a party last month, and that explains defense lawyers' claims that no DNA from players was found on her.

The woman's father, appearing on MSNBC's "Rita Cosby Live & Direct" Tuesday night, said his daughter told him that when three team members raped and sodomized her, they also used a broom.

The father said he learned about the broom from others, "and then she told me afterwards because she didn't want me to know that part," he said.

Durham civil rights activist Victoria Peterson told the Observer on Wednesday that an investigator in the case told her the woman had been sodomized "with an object."

"He did not say a broom, just an object," said Peterson, who has become a friend and adviser to the woman's family since the party. "He told me she wasn't just raped, she was terribly sodomized."

When reached by the Observer on Wednesday at his home, the woman's father said he was leaving for a doctor's appointment and couldn't talk.

Defense lawyers for the players were not available or did not return phone calls for comment. Police officials also would not comment.

In papers filed with the court, police who searched the Buchanan Boulevard house where the party occurred made no mention of seizing a broomstick. And a broomstick was not among the items that police said they wanted to seize when they applied for the search warrant.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

i like how her story of what happened that night tends to change with the evidence.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

DURHAM, N.C. -- The woman who says she was sexually assaulted by three members of Duke's lacrosse team also told police 10 years ago she was raped by three men, filing a 1996 complaint claiming she had been assaulted three years earlier when she was 14.

Authorities in nearby Granville County said Thursday that none of the men named in the decade-old report was ever charged with sexual assault there, but they didn't have details why.

Relatives told Essence magazine in an online story this week that the woman declined to pursue the case out of fear for her safety. A phone number for the accuser has been disconnected, and her father said Thursday night he remembered little about the incident except going with police to a home where he said his daughter was being held "against her will."

Asked if she was sexually assaulted, he said, "I can't remember." In an interview with the News & Observer of Raleigh, posted Thursday night on the paper's Web site, he said the men "didn't do anything to her."

The existence of the earlier rape report surprised defense attorneys, one of whom has sought information about the accuser's past for use in attacking her credibility.

"That's the very first I've heard of that," said Bill Cotter, the attorney for indicted lacrosse player Collin Finnerty, who along with fellow Duke sophomore Reade Seligmann is charged with first-degree rape, kidnapping and sexual assault. He declined additional comment.

Attorney Joe Cheshire, who represents one of the uncharged players on the team, said he wants to know if prosecutors in the current case knew about the earlier allegation or if the accuser told them about it.

He added that he found it notable that authorities apparently declined to prosecute the earlier case.

"These are serious allegations, particularly for a person that age. In my mind, it would raise real issues about her credibility," he said.

so this woman, who's story changes with every new piece of leaked evidence has a past rape accusation, where she made almost the exact same claims... raped and beaten by 3 men... 10 years ago, where the DA at the time didn't see fit to press charges. riiiiiiight.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) -- A cab driver who has supported an alibi offered by one of the two Duke lacrosse players charged with rape has been arrested on an old shoplifting warrant.

The warrant accuses Moez Mostafa of stealing five purses worth about $250 from a Durham department store in 2003, which he denies. Mostafa told The News & Observer of Raleigh he helped store security locate a woman after he had picked her up from the store and drove her home.

"I am not responsible for what she did inside the store," Mostafa said. "I am just a taxi driver."

The woman pleaded guilty to larceny three months later, the paper said. Mostafa said he thought he was done with the case until he was arrested Wednesday.

District Attorney Mike Nifong said the warrant for Mostafa's arrest was discovered during a routine rundown of information about witnesses in the case. There is no police unit in Durham charged with clearing old warrants.

Ernest Conner, a Greenville lawyer who represents Duke sophomore lacrosse player Reade Seligmann, said the cabbie's arrest amounted to intimidation in the rape case.

Mostafa has said Seligmann called for a ride at 12:14 a.m. on March 14, and was picked up five minutes later. The defense has argued those times help establish that Seligmann left the party before having enough time to participate in the 30-minute assault described by the accuser.

Seligmann's attorney has also presented cell phone, ATM and dorm keycard records to help establish that timeline.

The accuser, a 27-year-old black student at a nearby university, told police she was raped and beaten by three white men at the party. A grand jury has charged Seligmann, of Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, of Garden City, N.Y., with rape, kidnapping and sexual assault. Nifong has said he hopes to charge a third person.

this DA is clearly out of control and trying to grasp on to anything he can to salvage this case.

 

[kellyahern]

A third player was indicted today.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12798569/

Interesting name.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

they've indicted the edge!

 

[randhail]

more proof the DA is just out to make a name for himself