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Duke players are cleared, but the damage is done

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 12, 2007

RALEIGH, N.C. - All along, the three Duke lacrosse players proclaimed they were innocent of charges they sexually assaulted a stripper. They were railroaded, they insisted, by a prosecutor who refused to believe them and ignored the facts.

It took more than a year, but on Wednesday, North Carolina's top prosecutor finally agreed with them.

Attorney General Roy Cooper declared them innocent of all charges and delivered a blistering assessment of a district attorney he blamed for a "tragic rush to accuse."

"We're just as innocent today as we were back then," said one of the players, David Evans. "Nothing has changed. The facts don't change."

Evans, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty declared a bitter victory in a press conference.

"It's been 395 days since this nightmare began. And finally today it's coming to a closure," said Evans, his voice breaking at one point.

The three young men and their lawyers accused the news media and the public of disregarding the presumption of innocence and portraying them as thugs in the weeks after the March 2006 party that led to the allegations.

Defense attorney Joe Cheshire said: "We're angry, very angry. But we're very relieved." Afterward, Cheshire said work would soon begin to expunge the trio's arrest record in the case.

Cooper dropped all charges against the players, all but ensuring that only one person in the whole scandal will be held to account: Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong.

"This case shows the enormous consequences of overreaching by a prosecutor," Cooper said.

Cooper, who took over the case in January after Nifong was charged with ethics violations that could get him disbarred, said his own investigation into a stripper's claim that she was sexually assaulted at a team party found nothing to corroborate her story and "led us to the conclusion that no attack occurred."

"There were many points in the case where caution would have served justice better than bravado," Cooper said. "In the rush to condemn, a community and a state lost the ability to see clearly."

Nifong was out of town and could not immediately be reached for comment. But his lawyer, David Freedman, said: "If further investigation showed the boys were innocent, he would be in agreement with what the attorney general's office decided to do."

Evans, Seligmann and Finnerty were indicted last spring on charges of rape, kidnapping and sexual offense after the woman told police she was assaulted in the bathroom at an off-campus house during a team party where she had been hired to perform. The rape charges were dropped months ago; the other charges remained until Wednesday.

Duke suspended Seligmann, 21, of Essex Fells, N.J., and Finnerty, 20, of Garden City, N.Y., after their arrest. Both were invited to return to campus this year, but neither accepted. Evans, 24, of Bethesda, Md., graduated the day before he was indicted.

The case stirred furious debate over race, class and the privileged status of college athletes, and heightened long-standing tensions in Durham between its large working-class black population and the mostly white, mostly affluent students at the private, elite university.

The woman is black and attended nearby North Carolina Central University, a historically black school; all three Duke players are white.

The attorney general said the eyewitness identification procedures were unreliable, no DNA supported the stripper's story, no other witness corroborated it, and the woman contradicted herself.

Cooper offered no explanation for why the stripper told such a story and would not discuss her mental health. However, he said no charges will be brought against her, saying she "may actually believe" the many different stories she told.

The accuser's whereabouts were not immediately known. The Associated Press generally does not identify accusers in sex-crime cases.

While portraying Nifong as a "rogue prosecutor," Cooper declined to say whether he believes Nifong should be disbarred, saying it would not be fair to pass judgment before he goes on trial before the state Bar in June.

The case was troubled almost from the start. DNA failed to connect any of the athletes to the 28-year-old stripper. One of the athletes claimed to have ATM receipts and time-stamped photos that provided an alibi. It was also learned that the stripper had leveled similar gang-rape allegations a decade ago and that no charges resulted.

Then, in December, Nifong dropped the rape charges after the woman said she was no longer certain she was penetrated.

At the news conference with his former teammates, Finnerty said: "Knowing I had the truth on my side was really the most comforting thing of all throughout this last year."

What's next

Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong is scheduled to appear Friday at a hearing in his ethics case. Nifong could be disbarred.

The players

The case is over, but there are no winners.

Fast Facts:

What they're saying

"This entire experience has opened my eyes up to a tragic world of injustice I never knew existed. If police officers and a district attorney can systematically railroad us with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I can't imagine what they'd do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves."

Reade Seligmann, 21, one of the players who was cleared

"Two days after this happened, I knew what the truth was. When you say you believe in somebody, when you say you believe the truth, you stand by them."

Former Duke lacrosse coach Mike Pressler, now lacrosse coach at Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I.

[Last modified April 12, 2007, 02:01:10]