Duke Rape Case Update

Just got in from NYC, I see LaShawn has been keeping up with the latest news. She includes a review of some pictures via ABC News. If new info comes out, I'll update below.

Update: Players posting bond, one out on bail now. BTW one's family lives about a mile from here.

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - One of the two Duke lacrosse players arrested earlier today is out on bail and the other could be out soon.

Authorities say Reade Seligmann has posted a 400-thousand dollar bond, and Collin Finnerty is in the process of posting bond for the same amount.

By posting bond, the players avoid making an initial court appearance.

Oh, and the city was beautiful today - it's almost halter season.

Um, not for me, I mean. lol

Comments

[Laertes]

One of the accused has a history of violent criminal behavior:

http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/429880.html

With a hate-crime angle to boot. That's not gonna help.

[xxx]

I suspect the fact that the defense has witnesses and an ATM or credit card receipt that places at least one of the boys as being not at the party during the time the alleged victim says she was raped is going to prove more potent.

[Caren Holland]

Important note to all rape accusers.......make sure the guys you strip for and then later accuse of rape are actually present at the specific location where the "crime" occurs!!!Is there a "Dumb Rape Victim Site"? I want to see her photo.

[Laertes]

When the DNA came back negative, I figured this was over. Pretty lucky guess on her part, though, if she's lying. Imagine the odds of her randomly fingering the guy with a history of violent bigotry.

[xxx]

Imagine the odds of randomly accusing a guy of rape who was not in the house where the rape occured when you claim it happened!

[Gary Maxwell]

Lucky? She picked the one guy with a multiple witnesses and receipts showing he was not there and add in a security video at the ATM. How lucky is that.

Can you imagine a Defense line of questioning about her certain identification being demonstrably false? It gets them all off even if there is a guilty one in the group. And assault charge aint the end of the world, but if we are going to bring up criminal records you might want to go look at the criminal record of the accuser too. She has one.

[Laertes]

I'm reluctant to get into this with you because you've clearly made up your mind already and you've got an axe to grind.

But, what the hell, I'll take a shot and see if you can keep it civil.

If Defense can prove that one of the guys she IDed wasn't there, she's pretty well cooked. It calls all her other IDs into question. If I'm on that jury, I'm swayed a great deal by evidence that one of the accused has a history of violence toward minorities. But if the accuser now has a history of botching her perp IDs, that carries at least as much weight.

As for her criminal record, the weight it'll have depends a great deal on its' relevance to the charges at hand. If she's got a record of perjury, filing false charges, or other bad behavior that directly impeaches her testimony, that weighs heavily. If she's been busted for, say, minor drug possession or petty theft, that hurts her, but far less so.

[xxx]

I don't see much of a psychological link to gay bashing and rape.

Isn't that the reason that the defendant's criminal past is almost never admitted?

If he had been charged or accused of another rape, then I would say by all means it should come into the trial, but I don't see beating up a gay guy as being very helpful in determining if a rape occured.

The woman's criminal history is 50/50...she was convicted basically of stealing a car while drunk...and she was found in someone else's car, though she wasn't trying to steal it, while allegedly intoxicated on something. So, there is a certain parallel, but it's a stretch.

[Caren]

How does "shouting names at a gay guy" then getting into a brawl imply guilt in the possible commission of a vicious rape?

[Laertes]

"I don't see much of a psychological link to gay bashing and rape."

The common element is that each alleged incident involves violence directed at minorities. It's clear as day. Showing that the defendant is a bigot who feels entitled to use violence against those he imagines to be his social inferiors would be directly relevant.

"Isn't that the reason that the defendant's criminal past is almost never admitted?"

Precisely backwards. You suggest that the reason it's not permitted is because it's not relevant. The reason it's not permitted is because it's directly relevant, and so prejudicial that it's impossible for the defendant to get a fair trial if the jury is informed of a history of similar crimes.

I'd be shocked if a jury heard of it. It's not entirely insignificant, though. For starters, it's fodder for those of us here in the cheap seats. It might also have had something to do with the DA's decision to prosecute. He's got an obligation to drop the case if he thinks it's got no merit, so I wouldn't be surprised if the criminal record on one of the accused influenced his decision to file charges.

[Sgt. York]

RE: "Imagine the odds of randomly accusing a guy of rape who was not in the house"

I understand that after the strippers refused to dance many of the students left in disgust. At this point she claims to go outside, be coaxed back in, and then held in a bathroom while three men vaginaly, analy, and oraly rape her while choking and beating her.

Thus, she could have randomly picked three guys from the photos of the lacrosse team and easily picked someone who had left before the alleged incident.

[Laertes]

"Thus, she could have randomly picked three guys from the photos of the lacrosse team and easily picked someone who had left before the alleged incident."

Yeah, but however easy it might be to make that mistake, you can not make that mistake. Whoever she names is going to get their mugshot splashed on national TV and go on trial for rape. And be Nancy Grace's chew toy for months.

If the bit about how one of the guys she named definitely wasn't there at the time holds up, the other two IDs are called into question. Any reasonable and open-minded person observing the case from the cheap seats is going to find that awfully persuasive.

[xxx]

It seems hard to believe this DA who supposedly has a good reputation would be so careless as to bring charges against someone who even "might" not have been at the party, but I suppose if that is who she ID'd then that's his case.

Defense attorneys are notorious for stretching the truth to make it "impossible" that their clients are guilty, but the window of time for the rape is only a half hour...so there isn't much opportunity for the defense team to be playing games.

I guess we will find out, just like we will find out eventually what the woman's rape exam consisted of, if drugs or alcohol were found in her system or not and so on.

[Laertes]

Witness ID's are troublesome in any event. They're routinely regarded by juries as the most reliable form of evidence, and they're among the worst. Witnesses just get stuff wrong. Look through, say, the files of the innocence project, and see how many of the people they've exonerated with DNA evidence were convicted largely on the strength of flawed eyewitness testimony.

"Yes, that's him over there." Whatever, lady. You'll point at whoever the cops indicate is their suspect.

It's especially difficult when the witness and the person to be identified are of different ethnicities. People aren't nearly as good at this as we mostly think they are.

A routine law school exercise (I've heard this from two different law professors) is to gather a bunch of law students in a public place like, say, a bank. On a day when it'd be otherwise closed. They'll then have some people stage a robbery. Bear in mind that everyone knows what's going to happen. It's a perfectly safe environment, nobody's surprised, nobody's in danger, nobody's scared. And they're all brighter, or at least far more well-educated, than the average joe.

And after it's over, these well-educated, not-frightened, not-stressed witnsesses can't agree on anything. The number of perps, their rough descriptions, what they were wearing. Which ones did what, the sequence of key events. Nothing.

The point of the exercise is to drive home to lawyers just how unreliable eyewitness testimony is. It's a shame they don't do this with jurors.

[sick-of-the-lies]

Tucker Carlson is discussing the case and he says that HE was falsely accused of rape by a woman he never met.

[cj]

How can you say that anti-gay hate crime is linked to alleged rape, especially when the so-called anti-gay hate crime did not warrant the accused being indicted on a hate crime? See below for support of assault in Washington not being classified as a hate-crime.

"Prosecutors did not treat the attack, which resulted in misdemeanor simple assault charges against Finnerty, as a hate crime. Stephanie Bragg Lee, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, said the circumstances didn’t warrant hate-crime status. ‘It was an argument between two young guys who were sizing each other up,’ she said. ‘Both sides had an equal portion of discussion, so we felt it wasn’t specifically a hate crime. So we waived the option there.’ She added attorneys consider hate crimes on a case-by-case basis, and aren’t necessarily warranted by name-calling, even when the words used are anti-gay. She said attorneys considered all the facts when determining whether a hate crime occurred, and the circumstances in the Nov. 5 attack didn’t justify it.”

Note how the mass media took only the snippet mentioning the word “gay” from a police report to portray Finnerty as a homophobic thug. Glad to see that someone (WashBlade) had the courage to print the other side of the story. For those that don’t know about Washington Blade…The Washington Blade has grown impressively becoming the weekly news source for Washington’s large and visible Gay community, which, in my opinion, makes it the perfect source for a story about an alleged gay-bashing assault that occurred in Washington.

[hobo]

"If I'm on that jury, I'm swayed a great deal by evidence that one of the accused has a history of violence toward minorities." by Laertes

The crime of focus here is rape, my friend. If you're on a jury and you obsess about other personally selected character traits of the accused, you've become an object of injustice because you have deviated from giving him/her a fair trial. If the accused is on trial for both hate crimes and rape, then we have another story; but in all fairness to the accused, the jury must focus on why a case is in court and not factor in the personal bias of the jury member. Please don't misunderstand my comment to be a personal attack, because I'm a little fascinated by your writing style; it appears you think outside the box and observe from different angles.

[xxx]

Seems odd to me that the search warrant for the two suspects rooms included cameras and cell phones.

Hasn't the DA been reading the newspapers? Doesn't he know all those cameras and cell phones are at the lawyer's offices under lock and key?

Does he think these guys are keeping her stupid shoe in their dorm rooms?

I am very disappointed in the media for burrying the statements from the lawyer that his client has witnesses and receipts that give him an alibi for the time the alleged rape occured.

[Gary Maxwell]

Laertes

Some of her convictions have to do with public intoxication and resisting arrest. I dont think that plays well with most juries myself but I would be interested in your take as it takes 12 to convict.

I have been thinking for some time that the Defense will not ask for a jury trial as Durham is too loaded with minorities and guilty white liberals to have confidence in the jury pool. A judge is all that is required if Defense agrees, and in this situation w/o a change of venue that might be what happens.

[CJ]

Anybody see the original police report for this alleged crime. Thesmokinggun.com has the actual document posted. The alleged victim said that the three alleged attackers were name Bret, Matt, and Adam. Personally it seems strange that there are two kids on trial now named Collin and Reid?

[Gary Maxwell]

CJ

I think at least one of the boys Dan a senior and an occupant at the house where the party was held, has admitting to using the name Adam when booking the stripper. I guess it is possible that the other two were using aliases too, and that the names match up with other team members.

If that were the only conflict here I could easily explain it away. Unfortunately, it is not anywhere close to the only conflict. If Segilmann does in fact have eyewitness testimony and ATM and CC receipts that can prove him outside the house any significant period of time between about 12:05 and 12:30 am, he is Not Guilty and if I were on the jury the level of my doubt on any ID would meet any standard in the legal profession. Reasonable doubt is all that is required to prevent a conviction. Ask yourself this, if she got one ID conclusively wrong, what would it take to convince yourself that she was right on any other ID?

[CJ]

Gary,

I agree that aliases could be used. I was merely pointing out another discrepancy in the case. I would agree with you that one false ID would raise doubt about the correctness of the other ID.

Also, I would like to raise another question. Based on the current reports, the accused were identified by the alleged victim using photos. Yet there are many accounts (security guard, second dancer, police) that the alleged victim was intoxicated. Now there are arguments over whether she was drunk before the party (defense) or was possibly drugged (alleged victim's family/second dancer), but regardless of the way in which she became incapacitated, I think this presents a dilemna for the DA. How can a person who is described by all accounts as "passed-out" drunk identify her attackers? Not too mention the fact that the ID apparently took place over a week after the incident.

[Gary Maxwell]

CJ

You are dead on, which is why I cant believe the DA indicted these guys. Wouldn't you have given the Defense atty representing these guys a chance to convince you that his client could not be the rapist? Especially since he is now looking like a fool to everyone except the extremely gullible.

I am now told that time dated pictures put the "dancers in the house about 12:02 dancing. The ATM receipt is time dated 12:24 and it is located 3-5 minute drive from the House. Seligmann took a cab (the cab driver backs up his story). Now it takes some time to walk several blocks away and then either call or hail a cab, right? We dont know the exact time but it aint zero and could be 10 minutes or so. So the window here is incredibly small already. Add in the girls story about leaving after insulting comments, being coaxed back inside and then a 30 minute violent rape, and I think you have any reasonably jury telling the DA "NOT GUILTY." I would hope the DA sees this and drops the whole thing, but I am not counting it likely since the whole thing seems to be driven by a zeal to punish ANYBODY.

[xxx]

I think the alleged rape was to have taken place right around 12:05ish and when the next photo of her is which is around 12:30.

So that means he would have about what 10 minutes of participation to be out of the house and down at the ATM by 12:24.

Gee, do you think the "victim" mentioned that one of the guys left the violent gang rape early?

My real fear is that they will be convicted no matter what because the black community in Durham wants blood.

This woman's story fell apart before the DA took the case to the grand jury, he knew at least about the photographic evidence that ran contrary to her story and I read he even refused to look at the photos from the defense team.

It will be very interesting to see what her toxicology report turns up.

[Gary Maxwell]

Not mention supposedly stole $400 from her but needs to go to the ATM for enough cash for a cab ride and a fast food burger. Lots of details in her claims that just dont match up with what is already known.

[Gary Maxwell]

The local ABC affiliate is reporting on the timeline and says they maginified wrist watch in at least one photo and it matches up with time stamp from camera. So those who think the photo timestamps were doctored now must think that the boys were clever enough to doctor the time stamp after the fact and reset their wrist watches ( before the photos). I await the explanation of that, I am sure we will hear it soon enough.

[Gary Maxwell]

Maybe ABC is in on a very vast conspiracy? Now that is something that guilty white liberals can sink their teeth into!

[xxx]

I thought the DA was supposed to be a stand up guy?

Yet he's searching the dorm rooms for cameras [um, they're already at the lawyers offices], her shoe [yeah right? I mean please], more email records...

I really thought the days of actually railroading people for purely political motives were gone in this country...well unless of course you are accused of being a terrorist then of course, all bets are off.

I'm also wondering if maybe the hospital didn't do any drug tests on her even though its standard practice in a rape exam.

I hate to assume that black jurors are going to vote guilty solely because they are rich white kids from Duke, but it sure looks that way from the outside.

The fact that the media totally downplayed the alibi is amazing to me.

[CJ]

I see it this way and this is just my opinion, would like to hear others' opinions.

Party happens, dancer is insulted and degraded by players. She angrily leaves the party. Intoxicated in public at grocery store, tells rape allegations to police. DA gets story from girl, believes rape occurred based on results of hospital screening and her story. Because of racial implications national media attention ensues, community in uproar. Facts of story start to become blurry and are mixed with DNA coming back negative. More media attention and pressure from community. Somewhere along the line the alleged victim ID's two assailants, but can't ID third. DA under pressure from community and media asks for indictment based on the story of alleged victim and IDs of alleged victim. What other choice does DA have? Drop charges and face fallout in an election year? Doubt it, put the case to a jury, even if it is a weak case, if case falls apart, he escapes blame because he went as far with case as possible.

I don't mean to simplify the case and investigation just trying to summarize my thoughts into a single paragraph.

[xxx]

I totally agree with you, but now what's he going to do now?

Prosecute to the best of his ability two guys who are almost certainly innocent? What happens if they get convicted because they are white?

He can't drop the charges after the eletion that would lead to an uproar so he has to follow through and put these guys on trial.

[Gary Maxwell]

I have heard many black folks talk about a serious problem which they refer to as being "guilty of driving while black". Now I would think that with this level of sensitivity to unfairness that some black people would start to not like the parallel here. These guys seem to be "guilty of being white males in Durham NC."

[Janice]

Oh my, who wouldn't believe this so-called alibi? The defense attorneys are getting exactly what they want, a taint of the jury. First of all, why all the alibi evidence for this rapist? Why would he make certain that he did all of these things to document time lines? The first reported timeline said the dancers arrived at 11:30 p.m. This doesn't give him time to rape her and be out of the house by 12:15? It appears that we truly have racists here.

Only blacks can be "lynched" in the media...O.J, Kobe, Barry Bond, now these dancers. What about...Robert Blake, Scott Peterson, Natalie Holloway (who has been confirmed to be drunk at a bar, kissing guys that she just met) yet the media and those other racists thinks that's okay. She's referred to as that beautiful, christian, Alabama girl.

If these young, beautiful, black, dancers are "hoes" and ghetto ???, then what do you call Natalie Holloway?

White people are such a monolithic group. DUH!!

[JW Smith]

Concerning Conviction:
Blacks are more likely to convict other Blacks of crimes against Whites, than Whites to convict other Whites of crimes against Blacks. This according to the US dept.of Justice. (USDOJ)

[tyler]

Something that has never sat well with me is the idea that the team would be willing to scrap their whole season to protect each other. I don't think they would. This is what they live for, most have been playing lacrosse their whole lives and we're supposed to believe they would give that up to keep some deviant friends out of jail? There's no way. Someone would have cracked the minute they knew their season was on the line.
The woman had a lot at stake if she went to jail. One more arrest and social services would take her kids. Seems like good motive to lie and it fits with why she didn't mention the rape until she was in the back of the police car.
I've been wondering if anyone has looked into what she was doing before the party. Could explain a few things.

[Frank]

Why do people keep saying that Seligman has an alibi because of when he called the cab? Even by the defense's own timeline, he was in the house between 12:03:57 when the last "timestamped" picture of the alleged victim was taken before the 20-some minute gap in pictures began, and 12:14 when the cab company reports that he called them. That's 10 minutes that he was there during the time that the rape allegedly took place, by the defense's own admission, it seems to me.

[Frank]

And why do people say that Seligman stole $400 from her? I thought they found the $400 cash in the house along with her purse and cell phone, which by the way, no woman would have left in the house under any kind of normal circumstances.

And why was Seligman so eager to establish an alibi with a receipt from an atm anyway? Did he think he would need one?

[Frank]

"Bret, Matt, and Adam. Personally it seems strange that there are two kids on trial now named Collin and Reid?"

Reportedly the players were changing the names they used for each other repeatedly during the evening. Now why would anyone do that? To confuse the women and make identification more difficult?

[Jenny]

I think this entire thing was planned and it probably isn't the first time they did it. Seligman left directly after the rape. Don't fall for the oky-doke. These boys knew what they were doing and how to do it.

And why was Seligman so eager to establish an alibi with a receipt from an atm anyway? Did he think he would need one?

[Frank]

"it fits with why she didn't mention the rape until she was in the back of the police car."

didn't mention the rape until she was in a police car?? That's some kind of proof she was lying to you?? You cannot be lucid. Many women wait hours, days, weeks before telling someone they were raped. Many women never tell anyone at all. And you think that a woman not telling strangers that she was raped minutes after it happened means a thing? What are you on?

[Frank]

"never sat well with me is the idea that the team would be willing to scrap their whole season to protect each other. I don't think they would"

What would they do if they knew what was going on and therefore could be charged with being accomplices?

Maybe they are not so insane as to think that a season of lacrosse is more important than rape and kidnapping charges or accessory to rape and accessory to kidnapping charges.

Also are you sure absolutely no one is saying anything? Certainly one of them turned in the "kill-em and skin-em" email.

[Krystal]

What really happened that night

I guess it happened years ago. I started having sex at a very early age. I’m not sure why, I just wanted to. When I was still in high school, I was in competition with myself to see how many boys I could have sex with in a week. I became quite self educated in the subtle differences there are in each boys genitalia.

Guys who looked like they were packing huge equipment sometimes where packing “happy meal” toys, while guys you would least expect would be packing man-size equipment that would make any girl’s mouth water and pusy sweat.

One day I had sex with three boys in the bathroom of my boyfriend’s house, and I immediately got a reputation f being easy. That reputation was a double edged sword. On the positive side, I got more guys than ever, but on the negative side everyone knew. Even in this age of “equal rights” girls still suppose to not like having sex. Strangely, feminist are the ones perpetuating this myth. A feminist friend of mine told me if I claimed I was raped, I could redeem myself and reputation. I could blame my avid hunger for sex on “being abused at an early age”. She even suggested that I claim I was raped by my father. My reputation would be instantly vindicated as I enjoyed all the powers and benefits of being a “victim”.

Years later when I was being dishonorable discharged from the Navy for having sex with over half the men and few of the women in my squad, I claimed I was raped, but since many of my sexcapades were video taped, I didn’t want to risk being caught in a lie because I couldn’t remember which guys and gals video taped me and which ones didn’t, so I made a claim in 1996 that I was raped by three boys when I was in high school.

It was tough living the lie, and I wasn’t interested in being in the Navy anymore. A friend told me I could make tons of money by marrying a man, having his child, then leaving him forcing him to pay child support which can take up to 60% of his net pay. If I had children from three different guys, I could collect over one thousand dollars of tax free child support each month for 18 years, but that plan fell through because I married a loser who found out I gave birth to another man’s child while married to him. My ex-husband tried to gain custody of my child, but I didn’t want to pay child support to him, so in 1998 I claimed that he kidnapped me and tried to kill me.

I’ve been a stripper/prostitute/escort for awhile now, and I’ve been taking a few classes at UCNC in hopes to recruit a few girls of my own to pimp out. One night in 2002 I was having a particular good night, so I partied a little too hard, gave a public lap dance to a cab driver, when he wouldn’t have sex with me in exchange for cab fare, I stole his cab, and when the cops tried to stop me, I tried to kill them. I’m still on probation for that little incident.

Earlier this year in 2006, I was working my ass off – literally! I had sex with a “client”, then with my boyfriend, then with a battery vaginal sex toy, then with two guys in exchange for a ride to the lacrosse party. The boys were pissed because I arrived so wasted. I had my routine party drugs that evening and I was feeling grrrrrreate! I stumbled all over the place, and after five minutes I wanted to leave. After why not? I already was paid. My stripper friend, “K”, was arguing with the boys over us taking the money without providing a show. She called them racial slurs and they responded in kind, but to get them back, she called 911 and lied claiming that we were only driving by and racial slurs were being yelled at us. We laughed and laughed that the 911 –people could be so stupid.

I was so wasted that I forgot my money and phone at the boys’ house, but the $400.00 “K” didn’t want to slpit her take with me, so she called the cops to have me arrested. I drank the last of my booze and took the last of my party drugs so the cops wouldn’t atke it. By the time the cops arrived I was feeling “fffffffine!” And that’s when it hit me! I was being arrested for … oh I forgot, but to get out of it I claimed rape. That always works. I was surprised they believed me. My story was wild and a fantastic fantasy, but I had no evidence to back it up. I only had a little scratch on my knee from when I fell when I was totally wasted, and a little scrape on my ankle. The doctor and the nurse checked my pusy. I really enjoyed that. I’m thinking of having pap smears every week. I love laying there naked with my legs up and cold metal probes are inserted into my vagina. I must have had four orgasms just waiting there.

The local DA, he’s such a loser, wanted so badly to get elected that he cherry picked every piece of evidence to make a case. All he cared about was making national news. He said it was better than sex, and I would agree. In college, the DA should have spent less time with his head in books, and more time learning how to please a woman. You’d figure a white man with such a small penis would make up the difference with some kind of technique.

It’s amazing how feminist groups and racist groups are fast to jump on cases like this. I figure I can make bucks on the movie right alone. I thin it’s a laugh how news anchors like Nancy and Wendy twist and stretch any evidence or story to make sure people believe a rape actually occurred, but when someone points out that the evidence proves the rape didn’t really exist, both Nancy and Wendy claim that others are twisting and stretching the evidence. Talk about the kettle calling the pot black. Nancy and Wendy are my heroes. They have no integrity and that’s probably how they got where they are. Girls like Nancy, Wendy, and me should stick together. Using victimhood as a weapon and tool for personal gains will get us rich! I kinda feel sorry for those boys though, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

This is only my own personal story.