I believe I predicted that this is what would eventually happen. This case was pure bullshit from the word "go". [hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px;"]
[div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"] [span class="story-hed"]Lacrosse files show gaps in DA's case[/span]
[span class="story-drophed"]A review of prosecution documents in the rape investigation reveals that the district attorney's public statements promised more than the evidence released so far indicates[font style="font-family: Verdana;" size="2"]
[/font][/span][/div]
[span class="story-byline" style="text-transform: uppercase;"]Joseph Neff[/span][span class="story-byline"], [/span][span class="story-byline"]Staff Writer[/span]
DURHAM - Investigator Michelle Soucie of the Durham Police Department was working the phones the afternoon of April 17, trying to set up DNA tests on evidence in the Duke lacrosse case. A private laboratory in Burlington gave a price, and Soucie immediately contacted District Attorney Mike Nifong.It had been an eventful day for Durham's lead law-enforcement official: A few hours earlier, a gaggle of television cameras and reporters had trailed Nifong around the sixth floor of the courthouse. A grand jury had charged two Duke University lacrosse players with gang-raping an escort service dancer. The players would be arrested at dawn the next day.[/p]Nifong took the quotes on the DNA-test prices from Soucie and gave the officer further marching orders.[/p]"Mike Nifong stated that: Also need documentation on escort service and how they do business," she wrote in her notes. "Need to nail down what victim did on the day before arriving at 610 N. Buchanan so we can show that she did not receive trauma prior to the incident -- with witnesses."[/p]Nifong had brought charges in the most publicized case in Durham County history. He had said repeatedly on national television that he was certain the dancer had been raped. Yet the prosecutor was still trying to rule out other explanations for the vaginal swelling a hospital noted in its examination of the accuser.[/p]The words and actions of police and prosecutors had outpaced the facts in the file, and not for the first time. The case, which began at a college team party on a warm March evening, quickly drew national attention to Duke, Durham and to North Carolina's justice system -- even as the prosecutor's version started to unravel.[/p]In examining the files Nifong has produced in the case, The News & Observer found that the accuser gave at least five different versions of the alleged assault to different police and medical interviewers and made shaky identifications of suspects. To get warrants, police made statements that weren't supported by information in their files.[/p]The district attorney commented publicly about the strength of the medical evidence before he had seen it. He promised DNA evidence that has not materialized. He suggested that police conduct lineups in a way that conflicted with department policy.[/p]Nifong and other parties involved in the case declined to comment because of an order from Superior Court Judge Kenneth C. Titus. The News & Observer does not identify people who file complaints of sexual assault, and the accuser could not be reached for comment.[/p]Much of the district attorney's evidence is contained in more than 1,800 pages of documents he has made available to the defense under a recent state law requiring prosecutors to open their files before trial. Those documents are only part of the evidence that could be introduced in a criminal trial. They do not include information still being gathered or testimony that might occur under oath.[/p]But they offer the most complete picture thus far of evidence in the case that has put Durham and Duke in the national spotlight. The documents -- police notes, court orders, DNA tests, interviews and handwritten statements -- show what the prosecution has learned and how it conducted itself in State of North Carolina vs. Collin Finnerty, Reade W. Seligmann and David Forker Evans, who could face decades in prison if convicted.[/p]The accuser's stories[/p]At 1:22 a.m. March 14, Sgt. John Shelton of the Durham Police Department was called to the Kroger supermarket on Hillsborough Road. A scantily clad woman was passed out in a Honda Accord and wouldn't get out of the car. Shelton got no response when he talked loudly to her, his notes on the encounter say.[/p]As Shelton pressured her wrist to goad her out of the car, the woman grabbed the parking brake, struggling to stay inside. Once out, she collapsed on the parking lot. Shelton ordered his officers to take her to a 24-hour mental health facility where intoxicated people can be held.[/p]"Since she would not speak with us, we did not know her name or where she lived,'' Shelton wrote in his notes. "Taking her home was not an option."[/p]Eventually the silent woman, a student at N.C. Central University, began talking to doctors, nurses and police officers. Her accounts diverged widely on details of sexual contact, physical assault, alcohol consumption and the behavior of Kim Roberts, the second dancer, whom the accuser called "Nikki." The accuser danced under the name "Precious."[/p]Police drove the accuser from Kroger to Durham Access, the mental health facility, where she was checked out by the supervisor, a staff nurse and a security guard.[/p]"During the check-in process, the victim was asked if something had happened to her and she said yes," Officer Joseph Stewart wrote in his report. "She was then asked if she had been raped and she stated yes."[/p]A registered nurse at Durham Access said the woman was incoherent and her responses appeared "as if she were psychologically hurt," Stewart wrote. The nurse said the accuser's answers to the questions were "more of a traumatic response rather than a drunk response, because her thoughts were broken, but logical due to her trying to hold on to reality."[/p]Officer Willie Barfield took the woman to the Duke Hospital emergency room, Barfield wrote in his notes. The woman told Barfield that "Nikki" had taken all her belongings, including $2,000 in cash obtained by dancing at the party, her cell phone and her identification.[/p]At the Duke emergency room, Sgt. Shelton met again with the woman, who had become cooperative. According to Shelton's notes, she told him that she and Nikki had left the party and gotten into Nikki's car. Someone from the party wanted the women to return. Nikki wanted to go back inside, but the accuser said she didn't want to go in. The woman said the men groped her, but no one forced to her to have sex.[/p]The woman also spoke with Officer Gwendolyn Sutton. She told Sutton that she had danced at the party with three other women. She said that Nikki wanted to have sex with one of the men and tried to talk her into it. "She did not want to," Sutton wrote. "Nikki wanted her to come into the bathroom with her and the guys. She ended up in the bathroom with five guys who forced her to have intercourse and perform sexual acts."[/p]A registered nurse examined the woman for injuries, swabbed her for DNA evidence and wrote an account of the woman's story.[/p]The accuser told the nurse that Nikki had urged her to have sex with her and one of the men, "Brett." The woman said something didn't feel right and she stormed out of the house. She said she argued with Nikki in the car. Brett and Nikki then carried her back into the house, the nurse wrote.[/p]"I kept telling them no," the nurse's narrative said. "Nikki said, 'Girl, you want some more to drink, we got to make some money.' ... I said no, I want to get back in the car."[/p]The woman said she was taken into a bathroom where three men -- Adam, Brett and Matt -- raped her anally, vaginally and orally, using racial and sexual slurs while they assaulted her. One of the men, Matt, said he was getting married the next day. They did not use condoms and threatened to kill her if she didn't comply, the woman said, according to the nurse's notes.[/p]"Someone was knocking on the door letting them know it was time to go. ... Nikki was on the other side of the door and we started arguing."[/p]The woman said she begged Nikki to take her home. She told the nurse that Nikki pushed her out of her car and took her money.[/p]The nurse's report noted diffuse swelling of the vaginal walls. It made no mention of bruises, tears or abrasion to either the vagina or the anus. The nurse noted a non-bleeding scratch on the woman's right knee and a cut on her right heel. A doctor at Duke noted a scratched heel, and no other signs of physical assault.[/p]The next day, March 15, the woman saw two doctors at UNC Hospitals, where she had gone for health care before. Her primary complaint was neck pain. She told doctors she was dancing at a bachelor party and wanted to leave, but the other girls wanted her to stay. She said she was pushed into a bathroom and raped by three men.[/p]"She was knocked to the floor multiple times and hit her head on the sink during one of these episodes," the UNC records said. "She states she was drunk and had a lot of alcohol that night. She denied any pain in the emergency room because she was 'drunk and did not feel pain.' "[/p]Identifying suspects[/p]About noon on March 16, 2 1/2 days after the alleged rape, the two lead investigators went to the accuser's home. Sgt. Mark Gottlieb and Investigator Benjamin Himan interviewed her in her living room, Himan's notes say.[/p]The woman told the officers she was raped vaginally, anally and orally by three men -- "Adam," "Brett" and "Matt" -- in a bathroom at the house. Two of the men ejaculated, she said.[/p]The woman described each of the men, according to Himan's handwritten notes.[/p]Adam: "white male, short, red cheeks fluffy hair chubby face, brn"[/p]Matt: "Heavy set short haircut 260-270"[/p]Brett: "Chubby"[/p]That evening, two officers -- Michelle Soucie and Richard Clayton -- showed the accuser photos of lacrosse players taken from the goduke.com Web site, according to notes taken by both officers.[/p]The police had organized 24 photos into four sets of six photos each. The sets were labeled A, B, C and D. The police had put one named suspect in each group: Matt in A, Adam in B, Bret in C and a second Matt in D.[/p]After each photo, the police asked: Is this the person who sexually assaulted you?[/p]She did not identify any assailants. She did not recognize any of the players named Adam, Matt or Brett. She picked out four men with 100 percent certainty as being at the party, and one player, Seligmann, with 70 percent certainty as being at the party. She could not remember exactly where she saw each person at the party.[/p]"This is harder than I thought," she said, according to Soucie's notes.[/p]Five days later, the accuser showed up at the police station with her driver, Jarriel Johnson of Raleigh. She met with Himan and Clayton.[/p]"I asked her questions trying to follow up on a better description of the suspects," Himan wrote in his notes. "She was unable to remember anything further about the suspects."[/p]Police showed the accuser two more sets of photos, 12 players in all.[/p]"She could not identify any of the pictures in the photo array," Clayton wrote in his notes. "She again stated the photos looked the same."[/p]Police had shown the accuser photos of 36 of the 46 white lacrosse players. She had not identified anyone as her assailant.[/p]Two days later, the district attorney's office asked a judge to order all 46 white players to sit for mug shots (for current hair styles and complexion), upper torso photographs (for evidence of scratches from the accuser) and mouth swabbings (for DNA testing).[/p]The request -- searching a pool of 46 people for 3 suspects -- was unusual. To obtain the DNA and photos, the law requires reasonable grounds to suspect that the person named had committed the crime. By definition, 43 of the named people had not.[/p]2nd dancer disagrees[/p]To justify the request, prosecutors argued that players used deception. Himan wrote that they used one another's names to disguise their identities and confuse the situation. Kim Roberts, the second dancer, "stated the men at the party told her they were members of the Duke Baseball and Track Team to hide the true identity of their sports affiliation -- Duke Lacrosse Team Members," Himan wrote in the request to the judge.[/p]But there are contradictions in Himan's accounts. He had interviewed Roberts the day before, on March 22. Roberts told Himan that she knew the identity of at least one of the players, because she inspected the driver's license of the player who requested the dancers from the escort service. According to Himan's handwritten notes of the interview with Roberts: "Every on Spring Break, on Lacrosse Team." There is no mention of baseball or track or any other sports team.[/p]
