Duke: Alleged Rape Update

Things do seem as though they may be taking a turn, though no matter what, I'm certain some would say this is a case of the rich versus the poor, or white versus black. And it could be. But the emerging facts could also paint a different picture.

Now it's being said that the boys felt ripped off and there was some form of verbal altercation. That would match to the somewhat unusual 911 call received, as opposed to a rape. It's also claimed that it was the second girl in the car that made that 911 call. That story here

There was no rape reported at that time and the call sounded, at best, unusual. It didn't have the sense of someone who felt genuinely threatened. As the boys claim that the girl danced for a couple of minutes and basically took the money and ran ... the 911 call could, hypothetically, be a way to prevent them from following the girls.

If that's the way it turns out, these asshats on the LaCrosse team deserved to get ripped off. Most reports indicate at least some subset of them may have the worst kind of jock mentality going.

On the same day Duke University lacrosse player Collin H. Finnerty was ordered to provide DNA samples in a rape investigation, he was in Washington to face charges that he assaulted a man last fall.

Court records show that Finnerty, 19, and two friends were arrested early Nov. 5. Finnerty was charged with simple assault.

A man told a police officer who was driving by The Georgetown Inn on Wisconsin Avenue about 2:30 a.m. Nov. 5 that Finnerty and his co-defendants assaulted him, court documents said.

The man said he was minding his own business when the three men started picking on him. The man told them to stop "calling him gay and ... derogatory names." Then they attacked him, he said, "busting his lip and bruising his chin," court records say.

But even spoiled, or well-off, white assholes don't deserve to be charged with rape if they didn't do it.

Comments

[Sgt. York]

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They should release the DNA results. The 'condom' angle started after the DNA results were delayed/suppressed and the assumption by many is that there was no DNA match to any of the students. If she was raped the people who did it should go to jail along with anyone who assisted in covering up the crime; people who were not involved and simply happened to be at a party should not be falsely slandered as rapists. Likewise, if she fabricated a story then she should go to jail (which probably wouldn't happen).

I believe that FBI stats indicate that there is a 6% incident of recanting (woman admits charge was unfounded) as opposed to 3% recanting for other Index crimes. However, Linda Fairstein, who directs the prosecution of sexual assault in New York, said, "There are about 4,000 reports of rape each year in Manhattan. Of these, about half simply did not happen."

Remember Runaway Bride? She initially alleged that she was kidnapped and raped by a Latino driving a white van. I'm glad some guy driving a van didn't get arrested and tossed in jail. Maybe the FBI should take over this case - they seem to do a good job evaluating whether an allegation is fabricated and they likely would be less influenced by the race-baiting and local politics.

[Marci]

I thought it was reported that she ran and left the money and broken fingernails behind.

[DoorMart]

Yes Marci...left behind $400 bucks, her cell phone, purse, and fingernails

Latest is that some of the Lacrosse team has left the country.....gee rich momma and daddy just had to send their kid out of the country. Suspicious

Seems like more and more the Lacrosse players raped the woman. If there was no rape.....then you would have a good number of the 46 players DNA tested coming forward and say there was no rape...it is only the ones w lawyers on TV saying there was no rape (or even no sex).

Having followed the Kobe Bryant case....even having some of my investigative work used in that case.....I can safely say that the lacrosse players raped that dancer.

[Tre Benson]

Doormat I too have investigated this alleged gang rape of a woman by 3 Duke lacrosse players and I disagree with you.

This case, like so many other rape cases, all comes down to the character of the accuser versus the character of the accused.

Statistically gang rape by an athlete, not to mention an athlete from a university whose enrollment all have SAT scores over 1400, is nonexistent. USA Today did a study of sexual assaults and rapes committed by athletes in high school, college and professional ranks and out of the 168 cases they found over a 12 year period there were only two charges of gang rape, both were of an intoxicated woman, both were dismissed.

To suggest that these young men are capable of this sort of crime is to ignore the amount of self discipline these guys have to have in order to be competitive so successfully both on the field and in the classroom. Remember the lacrosse team has a 100% graduation rate from one of the toughest schools in the country.

And then look at the character of the accuser. I have been to Durham and not only talked with some that know her but I've talked with some of those close to this event and unless DNA comes back identifying someone specific the DA would be a fool to bring this to trial. Happen or not she is a brick to the prosecution and will sink the entire case.

Anyway on my blog ( http://www.crime.blogs.com )I have written about why this is all Bush's fault. It is about how the liberal mind has taken over the rational mind and can't tell heads or tails of anything muchless something as idiotic as a media frenzy over an event that doesn't even have an arrest of a suspect. The backstory though has plenty to do over wealth, privilege, power and politics and that's what selling this story all over this country. No one actually gives a rats ass about some prostitute or whether or not she will recieve justice. This entire thing is a metaphor for a much larger issue.

[junebugofva]

Doris Duke must be turning over in her grave.

[GSPatton]

Wow, jock rage from lacrosse players? It's certainly a possibility.

I'm sorry I missed out on that Duke education. I was accepted (pats self on back) but chose not to attend (too poor). At my school, lacrosse was merely a club sport played by geeks who needed a break from playing Doom or D&D. They would have probably fainted at the sight of a little T&A.

[TJ (another TJ)]

That's it, Tre - let's play the blame game again - this is Bush's fault; just another sad, sad excuse for this up and coming generation - not my fault.

[xxx]

Actually athletes get away with rape all the time, especially at NCAA schools when they are on money making teams w/big stars...the "team" almost always means more to the town than the victim.

However, in this particular case, doesn't it strike anyone as very strange that since we're talking about a stripper here, instead of saying yes, we had sex with her, she did it for money and then wanted more money and is lying...they are instead saying that NO ONE had sex with her at all.

Seems that saying it was a consensual gang bang wouldn't be hard for most peoople to believe, whether it was true or not, given the woman's profession, so why would all the players and all their lawyers be so adament that DNA is going to exonerate them and prove that no sex took place.

If there isn't any DNA matches or DNA found in the bathroom I am inclined to believe that the guys treated this girl terribly, probably scared her, she may or may not have been drinking and doing drugs, and when she left she jumped in this parked car because she was shaken up. When the police were called, afraid she would get in trouble, due to her prior arrest, she made up the rape story.

[Tre Benson]

I believe what you will discover in the various media accounts so far is that at 8:30 PM the guys called up an escort service called Allure to hire two strippers for a party. The first stripper showed up and the group waited 30 mins for the second one (the accuser) to show up, stripper #2 was driven to the location by an unidentified male. When the second one showed up she was under the influence of some intoxicant. The police report shows a time of occurrence being 11 PM. Neighboring witnesses said that the women didn't stay long. Defense attorneys said they danced for only 3 mins before the crowd became upset with the second strippers drunken state. The women left to get in the first strippers car. The crowd became more upset because they paid the women $800 for a 2 hour show and they left after 3 mins. A couple of the guys talked the women back inside. The women were seen by a neighbor to speed off in the same car 20 mins or so later with one guy hurling a slur in their direction. "Thank your grandfather for my cotton shirt."

At approximately 12:50 AM stripper #1 calls 911 to report being called a nigger. The call lasted nearly 1:22 mins. In that short time the caller said she and her girlfriend were called the name by a guy sitting on a wall as they drove by, then she said they were walking when someone called them that name from a porch, then she said she and her friend were sitting in her car parked outside a frat house when guys came out of the house yelling the racial slur. Police responded within 5 mins and the house was empty.

30 mins later stripper #1 has a security guard call to ask police to come and remove a drunk woman that refuses to leave her car. Claims she does not know stripper #2. Says she picked her up off the street, that she was severely intoxicated. Security guard saw stripper #2 and thought she was drugged because she could not smell alcohol. The security guard did not notice any bruising.

Police immediately responded and stayed on the scene until 6AM. Unknown what time she was admitted to the hospital.

Stripper #2 does not come forward with complete details for another 31 hours.

Within 12 hours after that search warrants are served on the party house. Stripper #2's wallet, 5 fake fingernails, one shoe and cell phone are recovered.

The three accused Duke students immediately, without lawyers, met with the police and offered up their DNA.

When accuser told her story to the Raleigh New & Observer she said her decision to report the rape came about after her father visited her in the hospital. The father in a later interview said he didn't see his daughter for a week after the party. She asked to leave her car there but never came by to see him or her two children until after the news broke in the paper. He said he had no idea that his daughter was the one in the paper. He did not go to the hospital as she claimed. When he did first see her he asked if she was OK and she said she was, she did not say anything to him until a reporter from the Charlotte Observer knocked on the door in response to the published News & Observer article.

Of course later on a cable news television show the father changed his story which he continued to do everytime he was interviewed from then on.

Anonymous sources have said from the beginning that there is a video tape of the night in police possession backing everything the Duke students have claimed and that there will be absolutely no DNA. There was perhaps an assault/heavy handed threats by some of the students to recover money that they felt was scammed from them.

Rumor is that Private Investigators for the defense have located stripper #1 who has gone into hiding. Sources say they are confident that stripper #1 will collaborate the defense version of what took place and dicredit stripper #2's story.

All of this is common knowledge down here in North Carolina, especially by the media. I sit watching all this unfold and can't help but feel as if I am watching a brush fire at the early stages fearing that it will soon become a wildfire and begin to destroy a good deal of acreage. Meanwhile I can't help but feel as if the media is fanning the flames. They seem confident that they can put it out at a later date (on a slow news day).

I can't help but feel as if there must be some reason, other than the obvious, for all the interest-unless it is a metaphor for a bigger, more powerful story.

Years ago, in an anthropology class, we discussed mythical stories and why they stuck around for centuries in folklore and legend. The reason why, I was told, was that all these fantastic, mythological stories had basic truths.

There are basic truths to this story, thus my analogy (see post above) of this being Bush's fault. Of course I have simplified it but I do believe that this is not so much a story about a raped prostitute but a story about the abuse of privilege by white powerful men. Men that may be seen as the ruling class by liberal simplistic egg heads. And the accuser? The accuser is seen as the invaded.

Anyway that is my take on this.

[Jenna Verghese]

racism in america comes out in these uncomfortable situations like never before. you guys are worse off than germany in the 1940's. bout time you admitted it.

[ella washington]

These kids will be exonerated. The media will then DROP the story like hot potato (NOT JUICY ENOUGH FOR THE LIBERAL PRESS). The MSM prefer the "Poor, unfortunate, exotic dancer , who was "brutally" raped by rich white boys"stort to the the "Opportunistic sleazebag (ho) who got roughed up the night before by some other dude and then falsely accuses the innocent in hope of a big financial settlement from Duke” story. MHO.

When she is found guilty of "bearing false witness", she will have her hand slapped and then run for congress. THOSE KIDS WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED AS THE "DUKE RAPE KIDS".

It's people like her who keep racism alive and well in America.

[B Cuplin]

Some months ago I was lurking in a discussion group that was talking about the Brazilian fellow shot by British police. As with this discussion, people were polarized about the officer's/fellow's guilt or innocence, long before the facts were known.

Here again, everyone's divided into lawyers for the team or the dancer, zealously advocating for their client. If we want to play, we should play jury. Let the lawyers pick and choose evidence. Let them pontificate, vilify, spin, and obfuscate. Our job ought to be to seek justice. Being rich doesn't make one a criminal, nor does exotic dancing, but committing either rape or fraud both do.