<p>Glad to hear that Reade has been honored in this way!</p>
<p>“Prosecutor details accuser’s credibility, drug impairment problems.”</p>
<p><a href=“The Smoking Gun: Public Documents, Mug Shots”>Final Duke Rape Report Issued | The Smoking Gun;
<p>A good read–thanks for posting the link, coronax2! The false accuser continued to make up stories during interviews with the special prosecuters–no one could ever have written a book with this story and have a publisher think it was credible!</p>
<p>Irish - ain’t that the truth! I think so many people that attached themselves to various aspects of this case did so because it would be nearly impossible to believe just how screwed up the whole thing really was. A previously and competently unambitious DA gets put into a placeholder position, immediately fires a hated rival in the office, and then finds himself in a heated primary with her. An assistant leaves information on a Xerox machine, and a plan to save the pension is born. A clearly troubled woman spins a tale which, it seems to me, is meant to keep her out of jail and ends up turning into a 13 month yarn of unbelievable (literally) scope and scale.</p>
<p>But what catalyzed the whole mess? The decision to hire a stripper.</p>
<p>
So what? That is irrelevant. While this may not be the worlds greatest decision, it is not illegal, and it is done all the time. Perhaps they couldn’t afford the “higher class” dancers, but what they did, buy hiring marginal entertainment, was not criminal. What was done to them was, imo.</p>
<p>“But what catalyzed the whole mess? The decision to hire a stripper.”</p>
<p>Not really. The stripper willingly went to this party to strip. That was her job. The hiring of a stripper for a spring break party may have been a bad idea, but was not illegal, and some could even argue that it was not immoral. It happens all the time. I haven’t seen anyone on this board condone this behavior, but many have agreed that it is not that uncommom on campuses and at bachelor parties all over the country. </p>
<p>What catalyzed this whole mess is that the stripper showed up at her job drunk and drugged. She was angry that she was told to leave, and the boys wanted their money back. She did not perform because she was drugged out and incoherent. She then tried to take advantage of the situation by lying about a rape that never happened. </p>
<p>The catalyst to this mess was a big fat lie that got out of control. The secondary catalyst was an unethical DA desparate to win an election by promoting the racial aspect of this case and not challenging the lying stripper.</p>
<hr>
<p>Jym626 - Great minds think alike. We cross posted!</p>
<p>And let’s not forget the Durham PD:</p>
<p>From today’s HS:
"Meanwhile, Durham officials said they will release a report by Wednesday detailing how the Durham Police Department handled its end of the lacrosse investigation.</p>
<p>In it, officials will discuss “our attempts to look at the exculpatory evidence, our attempts to speak with the lacrosse players and the identification process” that led to the indictments of the three players, City Manager Patrick Baker said.</p>
<p>“I have no intention of blaming anybody else for anything the [Police] Department did,” Baker said. “It would be good for the public to understand what we did and why we did it. But the report is not going to say, ‘We did it because the DA told us to.’”</p>
<p>1sokkermom-
Yes, we are on the same wavelength, for sure. Sorta feels like another case of blaming the victims. Odd, random thought. If this had been another culture and they had hired geisha girls, would this have been considered a bad or wrong decision?</p>
<p>The final report makes for interesting reading. Obviously this is the real thing from an investigation. But it went back to some things I and many others were writing about here on the old long thread once the doubt in this case started to blossom. One point was that the motivation for the accuser to fabricate this story about a rape was because she was trying to cover her own butt once she realized she could be in a heap of trouble. Once “Nikki” called for help at Krogers and the cops came and took the accuser to where they take drunks, she had to fear what would happen legally and/or with her children because she was found impaired, possibly under influence of drugs, and whatever else she was doing that night that wasn’t totally on the up and up. She already had a criminal record and didn’t need more trouble and also has young kids. So, rather than get into trouble, it was better to make something up. It even sounds like a nurse asked her if she had been raped and she went with it and the story took off (though for a short bit, she recanted it). In fact, both she and Nikki were dishonest earlier in the evening when they called the cops to say that some guys on the street were taunting them with racial ephithets and as if they were just passing by, covering up that they had just been at their house to perform as strippers. They were quite willing to make up a story in order to cover their own actions or behaviors.</p>
<p>The other thing I recall posting a lot of times was how the accuser could possibly recall details of that evening, let alone make any positive IDs if she were so impaired as witnesses, photos and even the cops saw that night. She was said to have identified two of the boys with 100% certainty and then Dave with 90% certainty. How can someone be 100% certain if impaired? Also, how can someone be 100% certain if on the prior lineups, they could not identify these men? All of this is now in the final report of this investigation. So many people were right about this for a long time.</p>
<p>I find it so interesting to read in an official report all the details that so many questioned about here and elsewhere and were very right about. Her changing stories even in this new investigation are stunning. Did she have the advice at all of a lawyer? I can’t imagine being advised to weave a new tale every other day even a year later. Her tale changed to fit the evidence with a few things like timing of the non-rape or when it could have occured, the physical description of Colin, and much else. It seemed like one of the cops, and I forget his name, was coaching her to make her new story fit the information they had about the incident. The way he questioned her without making notes on the spot and not until much later on one occasion and then on another questioning her without another witness of the conversation, all were not on the up and up. </p>
<p>This case didn’t have just one or two incredulous aspects but many, many, many! Not only was the accuser a complete liar, but add in how the case was handled by the DA, it was a complete disaster and disgrace that it ever got as far as it did. It is hard to imagine that a case could get that far based on so little and with a total incredible accuser and nothing more. It is not like there was just one smoking gun, but a zillion.</p>
<p>SuNa, while still in high school, my uber-straight and narrow very catholic daughter hired a male stripper for a birthday party, together with a group of girls. At the home of the birthday girl. With both parents home no less. And added to that, I have been to bachelorette (sp?) parties where male strippers are procured. In all experiences the result is the same - my daughter said the stripper was “sort of lame - somewhat o.k.-looking guy but otherwise a waste of money”; the female beneficiaries at parties sort of laugh and go along because they don’t want to be rude, but privately, to a person, they’ll say the stripper was “nice gesture, but sorta boring”, etc…and I’m guessing Seligmann and his pals thought the same. </p>
<p>The one difference in the Duke case is that obviously, at least one of the strippers was quite demented, as has been conclusively proven.</p>
<p>Blaming that this never would have happened had they not hired strippers is an odd way of looking at this in my opinion. That could be said about many unfortunate events! (let alone, as others have said, hiring strippers is not illegal…may be distasteful to many, though apparently is more common then I thought) It reminds me of how my daughter would say…“I never would have had my car accident and become so injured had I been in Boston that day as I was supposed to be in a jazz competititon with my school but the jazz teacher didn’t get the school’s form in on time and they couldn’t go.” So, bad things happen and you can woulda coulda all you want but the REASON the bad thing happened is not because you were at a certain place at a certain time. It happened for other reasons. This case didn’t happen because they hired strippers. Lots of people hire strippers and never have anything remotely like this happen. What caused this to happen was a troubled and unstable woman was hired to do this job and fabricated an accusation to likely save herself from getting into trouble when she came into contact with police that evening, and then combined with a rogue DA, this incredible case came to be what it was.</p>
<p>SuNa’s post is still bothering me. People go to strip clubs all the time. I don’t like these places, but they are not illegal. In them, they have rooms for “private” dances. Again, this is not a great choice, imo, but it is not illegal. Hiring strippers does not justify what they went through. </p>
<p>In my town, there is a company that does singing telegrams, some with strippers. (<a href=“http://www.easternonion.com/)%5B/url%5D”>http://www.easternonion.com/)</a>. They are funny and used all the time. We had one at someone’s batcherorette party, and someone sent me one at the hospital when I had my second son (a guy dressed in a diaper!). There are ranges of “harmless fun”, true, but that still doesnt justify what happened to these boys.</p>
<p><em>edit</em>
LTS and Soozie- Looks like we, too, were on the same wavelength</p>
<p>I guess one could say that because they were having a drinking party and hired strippers, they increased their risk of something not going well that night (though never in their wildest dreams would have thought that THIS would happen). But by the same token, bad things happen when someone is sitting quietly and minding their own business. A woman in her own home can have an intruder come in and rape her. She wasn’t looking for trouble and wasn’t engaging in any behaviors that others find distasteful. Bad things happen. You could say if they hadn’t had that party that night, none of this would have happened but you could say that when anything bad happens in life…“had I not done this or that…this never would have come about.” But the choices made that night to have the party certainly were not the CAUSE of the bad thing that happened. The guys could have gone on a date with a false accuser and had a really bad outcome too. Would you blame a guy who was on a date who had a woman bring up false chargers? Blaming the “victim” of the false charge for causing the false charge seems like a bit much to me.</p>
<p>hey1sokkermom-
What happened to your last post? It was succinct and right on!</p>
<p>In the postmortem, don’t forget that first newspaper article - the one the old thread here started with a link to. It was a sympathetic tearjerker based on an interview with “Precious” - during which she must have done better than with her later DA interviews, because there was no hint of her looniness. That article must have done a lot to create the public perception that Nifong rode to his election win a couple of months later. It certainly had that effect here. </p>
<p>My guess is that the newspaper reporters were tipped to the story by the police, or possible a lower-down DA since they wrote their story before Nifong took over the case. I’d be fascinated to read a follow up about that particular article, and how it came to be written - how the reporters were tipped to the story, how they contacted her, what their candid impressions of her were, etc.</p>
<p>One of the most important points made by the report from the AG is that Nifong never interviewed the accuser. He never challenged her or her story. He didn’t want to, even when the evidence from the DNA testing didn’t match up. And why? Because he didn’t want to–he didn’t want to drop this fantastic case that was getting him so much free publicity for his DA election. He didn’t want to look at the exculpatory evidence that the defense attorneys and their clients were begging him to review for the same reason. He didn’t want to. His agenda was to get elected and his goal was to be in office long enough to collect a higher pension. </p>
<p>Be careful what you wish for, Mikey!!</p>
<p>Actually SuNa, Ms. Mangum’s parents decision to have a child caused all this - right? Because without that? No case.</p>
<p>Hmm…</p>
<p>–Maybe the team shouldn’t have behaved so badly for three years that the AD ordered the coach to straighten them up.</p>
<p>–Maybe the team shouldn’t have been so badly behaved that even the two Duke students on this thread who later became LAX team supporters admitted that they thought the allegations were true.</p>
<p>–Maybe the team shouldn’t have LIED to the stripper agency about the size of the party–saying it was under 10–to avoid a bodyguard. (Surely reason dictates that SOMEONEwas planning to do SOMETHING not quite within the law.) </p>
<p>–Maybe the boys should have just hired a stripper, you know, someone to take off her clothes, instead of ordering up two girls and then demanding that they kiss and simulate sex and put things up their va*inas. </p>
<p>–Maybe the newly sainted three players should have had the guts to speak up and admonish it was wrong to threaten the girls with a broomstick (if they were not the ones to do it??). That made the girls panic and flee to the bathroom and become angry. </p>
<p>Oh, that’s right, threatening with a broomstick is just boys-being-boys.</p>
<p>Gosh, everyone acts like they did just the cutest thing, having girls dance around to see their tit*ies, when the reality is much more disgusting. </p>
<p>Oh, and then there’s the racism. . . .</p>
<p>^^<strong><em>yawn</em></strong> Got any new songs, FAP? This one’s gettin’ to be a broken record.</p>