Duke under siege, day twelve: the defense story emerges (Signifying Nothing: how does saying nothing at all become so loud?)

Thursday, 6 April 2006

Duke under siege, day twelve: the defense story emerges

Laura Collins of Survival Theory links a WRAL story that quotes Joe Cheshire, an attorney for Dave Evans, one of the Duke men’s lacrosse team captains, giving the partygoers’ side of the story:

Cheshire… said members of the highly ranked lacrosse team hired two dancers for a party on March 13 and paid the women $800 for their services, but that they did not provide the services they promised.

“These two girls were paid a tremendous amount of money to dance for two hours,” Cheshire said. “We can show, and will show if we have to, that they danced for only three minutes and decided to take all that money with them.”

The alleged victim told police she became fearful that night when the players became aggressive, and that is why she left. She told investigators that the men convinced her and the other dancer to go back inside the house, and that was when she was assaulted.

Cheshire said the men at the party were frustrated and angry, and points to an e-mail message recovered from [Ryan McFadyen]’s computer that was contained in a search warrant released Wednesday.

The message, Cheshire felt, was written out of frustration for an evening that did not live up to expectations. The e-mail, he said, shows nothing more.

“Some of the boys felt ripped off and angry,” Cheshire said. “And so they were angry. Were the words spoken inappropriate? Yes. Did any rape happen? No.”

Police also took other e-mails that also talked about the party, but not in an offensive manner, Cheshire said.

Cheshire also says ”[w]e’re absolutely positive that the [first 911] caller was not the accuser, but the other young lady there.”

Collins says:

So the attorney says that the woman danced for three minutes, took the $800, and lied and said she was raped. I could see someone claiming they were raped so they wouldn’t have to give up the money. Then again I can see it being easier to just take the money and go. If the men told the police that she stole their money, she could just say no. She could have just hidden it. Claiming rape when no rape occurred is a crime. If she’s lying she’s facing jail time. Wouldn’t you think any woman would know that? She would also have to consider all the publicity and the pain of having to go to court.

Damn peculiar. The “three minutes” claim doesn’t square with the public timeline of the case, although it’s more plausible if we buy that the “nosy neighbor” is imputing times from media accounts (primarily the 911 call times) rather than a reliable timekeeper. If we buy Cheshire’s timeline, and ignore the neighbor, we have something like this for March 13th/14th; times in bold are established by police:

11:30: women show up at house. (This may be the booking time, in which case we could treat it as more-or-less known.)
11:35ish: women start dancing, quickly get pissed off (broomstick?), and stop.
11:38ish: women leave; one is sweet-talked into returning into house.
11:38–12:08ish: woman 1 is allegedly raped, woman 2 cools heels in car.
12:08ish: woman 1 leaves, one player yells cotton shirt comment, women leave
12:10ish: players skedaddle from house (Player emails start soon?)
12:53: first 911 call from mystery woman, probably woman 1
12:55: police show up at house, find evidence of party, nobody around
1:06: police depart
1:22: second 911 call from Kroger security guard on Hillsborough Rd
1:58: Ryan McFadyen sends sick, depraved email from dorm room on campus

That leaves us somewhere from 45 to 75 minutes roughly unaccounted for. On the other hand, it’s more plausible than the women dancing for an additional 45 minutes and then deciding that the crowd is too rowdy. Still, I don’t buy this timeline; the women had to be there longer, or had to show up later, or something—McFadyen’s email is too irrational to have been sent over two hours after the end of the party; I’d think he’d have calmed down by then, although maybe meatheads remain angry longer than most people.

WRAL also reports that the alleged victim has a criminal record of her own that’s more substantial than previously revealed:

New information about the victim has been divulged, concerning charges arising from an incident that occurred several years ago. According to a 2002 police report, the woman, currently a 27-year-old student at North Carolina Central University, gave a taxi driver a lap dance at a Durham strip club. Subsequently, according to the report, she stole the man’s car and led deputies on a high-speed chase that ended in Wake County.

Apparently, the deputy thought the chase was over when the woman turned down a dead-end road near Brier Creek, but instead she tried to run over him, according to the police report.

Additional information notes that her blood-alcohol level registered at more than twice the legal limit. ...

[Her former attorney Woody] Vann also said that the allegations that that his former client was trying to hit the sheriff’s deputy were in error, and that she was merely trying to turn around. The case was resolved when she admitted she made a mistake, paid restitution and served probation and some jail time.

This revelation doesn’t exactly square with the News & Observer’s front-page interview from March 25th with the alleged victim, in which it is strongly implied that she had only worked in the adult entertainment business for two months.

11 comments:

Any views expressed in these comments are solely those of their authors; they do not reflect the views of the authors of Signifying Nothing, unless attributed to one of us.

1. Igor wrote @ Fri, 7 Apr 2006, 1:21 am CDT:

$800? Not bad. Well, it looks more and more like she’s a fraud. But what about her injuries? Maybe they roughed her up and that’s it?

2. Jack wrote @ Fri, 7 Apr 2006, 9:47 am CDT:

Only injuries I’ve heard reported were those alleged by her father.

3. Chris Lawrence wrote @ Fri, 7 Apr 2006, 11:01 am CDT:

The SANE (sexual assault nurse examiner) reported that she had some injuries, although I don’t know if she said what they were.

4. jairus m otieno wrote @ Fri, 7 Apr 2006, 1:16 pm CDT:

wow! this still happens and blows my mind. We are already willing to impugne the character of a rape victim because of inconsistencies in her background as if that explains or mitigates rape.What about the four plastic nails left in the bathroom, the one white shoe,the vaginal and anal trauma that was part of a rape kit collected at a hospital and the medical report by the pychiatrist at the rape center that says her behaviour was consistent with that of a rape victim. Ask yourself why the durham DA would personally take this case if he wasn’t sure the perponderance of the evidence pointed to a rape. One defense lawyers smokescreen can’t wipe out these facts. She named and picked the three men she claimed raped her out of a duke lax website in the aftermath. They are counting on comingled dna to muddy up the waters and conclude nothing happened.

5. Chris Lawrence wrote @ Fri, 7 Apr 2006, 11:00 pm CDT:

Jairus: The Durham DA took the case because he hasn’t done anything since he was appointed to office and needs to win the Democratic primary to stay in, so he has to look tough. Hence why he spent 10 days riling everyone in Durham up, then decided to go into hiding as soon as people started poking holes in his case.

The alleged victim named and (according to her father—the DA has never confirmed this) picked out three men who we know were at the party—big deal, of course she could pick them out of a photo array, she’d have to have short-term memory loss not to be able to pick out three guys who were actually there—doesn’t mean those three guys raped her. Maybe they’re the guy who paid her, the guy who held up the broomstick, and the guy who shouted “thank your grandpa for my nice cotton shirt,” none of which are criminal offenses. The police and DA are so confident in her ID—even if it did happen—that they got DNA samples from 43 other people too.

I don’t even know what “comingled DNA” is supposed to be—DNA doesn’t comingle or chemically react with other DNA under normal circumstances. You can tell when more than one person’s DNA is present in a given sample (skin cells, bodily fluids, whatever), and you can separately match them. If the defense is really relying on the possiblity that more than one players’ DNA is present, and therefore it will somehow cancel out, they’re far bigger idiots than even Mike Nifong. High-paid criminal defense attorneys aren’t that stupid.

6. jairus otieno wrote @ Fri, 7 Apr 2006, 11:16 pm CDT:

One of these lawyers actually made this argument on Dan Abrams (MSNBC)show last week.The reason this came up is because they state uncategorically that no sex occurred, which leaves out the consentual sex defense. If it is later proven by DNA that sex did occur, then the defense attorneys have done their clients a disservice.

I’m just reacting to the new willingness of the media to attempt to cut holes in the girls claims by character assassination which is why many states have rape shield laws. Like the Kobe case , how long do you think it will be before we see the accusers name on the internet ? Its sound technique for a good defense lawyer but morally reprehensable.

7. Chris Lawrence wrote @ Fri, 7 Apr 2006, 11:20 pm CDT:

Well, that lawyer is an idiot or doesn’t understand how DNA works. Or maybe he’s trying on some jury pool tainting of his own.

In any event, someone decided to post a misspelled version of the alleged victim’s name in a comment, and I removed it—but it’s surely elsewhere on the Internet, since I was able to find it in Lexis-Nexis with not a lot of work (see here for why I was able to find it).

8. Kehaar wrote @ Sun, 9 Apr 2006, 8:58 pm CDT:

"We are already willing to impugne the character of a rape victim because of inconsistencies in her background as if that explains or mitigates rape."

It seems to me that we are also willing to impugne the character of 40-odd young men based on allegations and supposed “evidence” provided to a hungry media by an ill-advised D.A.

Saying things like “we are willing to impugne the character of a rape victim” assumes that the allegations are automatically true. Until the evidence comes out, we cannot make this assumption. Rather than rush to judgement, it becomes us as Americans to remember our society is one that makes the assumption of innocence until the preponderance of evidence shows otherwise.

Let me be clear: rape is wrong. Blaming rape on a rape victim is wrong. I am not defending these things. I am merely suggesting that, until the evidence is in, the accuser is as much in question as the accused.

9. Rilke wrote @ Wed, 12 Apr 2006, 12:50 pm CDT:

Great Work on your investigation. I am wondering about this statement from the captain of the Duke Lax team. ”“We also stated unequivocally that any allegation that a sexual assault or rape occurred is totally and transparently false. The DNA results will demonstrate that these allegations are absolutely false.”

The word transparently is troubling me. I have just read of several rape claims wherein the dances claimed rape at a frat type party, wherein the accusers were found not quilty by video records of there own making durning the party. I am wondering if this is a new high-tech trend among this culture of “boys” to create evidence, before committing the crime. Thus the crime is “transparently false”, but actually true.

It is not uncommon for students in any situation to find very creative ways of cheating.

10. Thomas Jackson wrote @ Fri, 14 Apr 2006, 9:35 pm CDT:

It isn’t racism , It isn’t class, it isn’t even rape, it’s an attempt at a payoff. Regardless of the outcome of the investigation, expect a civil lawsuit.

Just a little research revealed that the alledged “victim” is a single mother of two. She lives in government subsidised housing and receiving AFDC and food stamps. Her children are being raised by her parents. She attends college free thru government sponsored student grants and loans which duplicate and generate income above the tuition. She is failing most classes as she seldom attends. She has an extensive criminal record for alcohol related crimes, auto larceny, resisting arrest and running from police.
She is a stripper to earn under the table money to support her drunken partying lifestyle. Previous clients state she usually arrives drunk and has offered services beyond stripping.

11. Chris Lawrence wrote @ Fri, 14 Apr 2006, 9:50 pm CDT:

Rilke: I’m told by someone who’s been to similar parties in the past as a Duke undergrad that there is usually some video record of the proceedings; then again, there are also usually bouncers/bodyguards too, which clearly weren’t present in this situation. Weird all around.

TJ: Interesting; I’d like to see your sources for that information. I was aware of the 2002 arrest but none of the other allegations.

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