Nice detective work on the 856 area code.

Rita actually said in a prior show that she called the 973 number and that Reade answered.

Fox News reported that there was multiple samples of DNA found under her finger nails on the first round of testing and that none of it was a match to the players. Most people on the Court TV board thought that this was pretty disgusting.

If she drops the case Nifong has a lot of answering to do. I don’t think people will be happy with a “I still believe her, but we can’t proceed at this time” comment.

We keep getting varying info on the DNA under the fingernails. Is it that the DNA doesn’t match the players or is it inconclusive? I would think those are two different results.

While waiting for the next round of DNA test results…it seems to me one critical piece of evidence still floating around out there is whether Kim was ever in the bathroom with the AV. So far there seems to be no one stating what they saw inside or outside the bathroom except for the AV. And there also seems to be a missing 20–30 minutes in the photos, although their timeline does not track with some statements.

I have read in other blogs that one theory being floated, is both strippers went and hid in the bathroom for 20–30 minutes after feeling threatened. But since the lacrosse team is not speaking, this theory currently does not seem to have legs. If Kim says she was in the bathroom with the AV, then things seem to get even more difficult for Nifong.

I saw this on the CourtTV Boards

http://www.fayettevillenc.com/article_ap?id=84340

Nifong is planning on recharging anyone on the lacrosse team who has deferred charges. Can he even do this without first proving that a crime occurred at the house or is there a statement in the deferment stating that the DA can reactivate charges for any reason?

This is when it is starting to get out of hand. Lets be honest, people in college don’t have the best judgement and think their immortal for the most part. They get obscenely drunk, sometimes pee in bushes, and don’t always make the best choices. This is not specific to Duke. I was in a fraternity at Duke, and it was always funny to me to see these guys come back who are now wildly successful and recant all these stories of craziness, things much worse than anything that has actually been proven to this point (racism aside, there is never an excuse for that). Even among the current students, some of our best and brightest at Duke have deferred charges of underage drinking (Remember the massive 4th amendment violation that was the first week of school this year? Some of the people deferred their drinking charges before it was all thrown out of court). Should all of them be charged to the full extent of the law (A law that did not exist our parents generation when the drinking age varied state to state and for the most part was college age; they seem to be doing just fine), preventing them from getting jobs and exercising that great potential?

Kim seems to be saying in interviews that she was never in the bathroom thus she didn’t see what happened. The players, according to the Chris on Rachel’s Tavern who says he knows the players, says that both women were in the bathroom and the men tried to coax them out.

Another version says something about nail polishing, while another says the women went in there after being threated with the broomstick. Yet, Bissel, the neighbor says the women ran out of the house and was coaxed back in. So did they run outside after the threat or did they run straight to the bathroom? Were both women in the bathroom or just the AV for the 30 minutes?

Question: can someone under the influence of a drug miscalculate time, thinking 30 minutes when in fact less than 10 minutes took place?

Kim got tripped up on the bathroom statement. She initially said that she knows that the AV was not doing her nails in there. She was then shrewdly asked whether she was in the bathroom and she said “I am not going there…next question”. My guess is that the players account is correct and that Kim was in the bathroom with her.

Nifong may be the most incompetent person at his job on the planet. How in the world do you deny exculpatory evidence(even for your own curiousity) and charge someone with an alibi w/o checking it out? I think that he has a better chance of being disbarred then the accused have of being convicted. That would be an interesting tradesports prop bet.

http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4–728093.html

I could see the case going to trial if Finnerty violated his plea agreement if he were convicted of the alleged rape, but this is simply a Grand Jury indictment with an extremely questionable identification by the alleged victim.

DukeDuke: so we should have two sets of criminal laws—those that apply to rich students at elite universities and those that apply to all others?

Personally, I’d have been more impressed had Nifong done this last month; now it just smacks of desperation, especially considering all the charges that he can reinstate (except Finnerty’s) are slaps on the wrist—“tell on your pals, or I’ll make you pay a fine and do some community service” doesn’t seem like much of a threat to me.

In his ruling today Judge John H. Bayly Jr. noted that Finnerty had not been convicted of the rape charge.

Rather than void the plea bargain he ordered a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. for Finnerty. In addition he is not allowed to be present anywhere where alcohol is sold or consumed and must report by telephone to Washington court officials each Friday.

I admit to be leaning more towards the AV rather then the lacrosse team…although Nifong seems to have made a mess of the proceedings.

If in fact some of the lacrosse players witnessed the two strippers enter the bathroom together, and stay in it for some period of time….why would they not have signed affidavits to that fact? And then why would these not be leaked to the press?

Looks like the DC judge will do the same as the rest of us—wait and see what happens in the NC case:

“Today in the District, Superior Court Judge John H. Bayly Jr. ruled that Finnerty had violated the conditions of a diversion program he entered after the Georgetown assault. The Washington charges would have been dismissed under the terms of the program once Finnerty completed 25 hours of community service, but the terms required that he not commit any criminal offenses.

“The judge said that he would consider delaying Finnerty’s trial in Washington until the proceedings in North Carolina are completed. The Washington trial was set for July 10 in D.C. Superior Court.”

Why would they do that now?

Fair enough question….

The defense does not want this thing to continue…with the damage that will be inflicted on their clients if they are innocent. An affidavit(s) more the players stating they witnessed the women enter the bathroom together….would kill two birds with one stone. It would reinforce the theory that this was a setup, and also provide some alibli for the accused.

Something I have been thinking about…what if a rape did occur and they have the wrong guy(Seligman)? That means one or more of his team-mates is allowing him to twist in the wind, if in fact a rape occured.

It would be almost impossible to keep 46 guys (with a lot to lose )from chirping if something happened. Not all of these guys are boorish creeps. The fact that no one has come forward(at least as far as we know) is another major reason to believe that no rape happened. I would be shocked if Nifong has a secret informant that blow this case wide open. It makes more sense that he is threatening to up the community service hours from 25 to 150. This seems much more like Clouseau.

The police should take a major hit too if this was a huge fabrication.

Sharon,

Good questions. I’m not exactly sure Kim is saying she wasn’t in the bathroom. She seems to be speaking very carefully. Here’s an excerpt from her interview with the AP (transcript can be found at MSNBC):

ROBERTS: Then they say they slipped a $100 bill under the door.

That‘s such a…

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)

ROBERTS: Under the bathroom door is what I heard. Lie, turkey (ph) lie, ain‘t going to go into it, turkey (ph) lie. They also said fingernails were painted while we were in the bathroom. I never—all I can say is I never saw any fingernails painted. Never saw it, that‘s all I can say.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you go into the bathroom at all?

ROBERTS: (INAUDIBLE) I‘m not going to talk about it.

It seems that both Nifong and the DC judge are doing their best to gather as many facts as they can before moving forward.

Sounds like someone’s doing their job for a change.

Nifong is doing his job?

Per the CNNSI legal expert. Alibi’s are exceedingly rare in cases like this. This guy has the whole world watching his job performance and he charges someone with a very strong if not ironclad alibi. This is almost comical if someone’s live wasn’t at stake. It is not as if there are 3,000 cab companies in Durham. Seligmann’s father and Rita Crosby are doing more fruitful investigative work than the bumbling DA and the keystone cops.

I will admit I was dead wrong if Nifong has either DNA evidence or an informant to prove his case. I doubt it though.

If something happened….and the witnesses are keeping mum per their attorneys’ instructions…what is their legal exposure?

tuocs, simplified answer to (what I think is) your question: You can take the 5th in a civil case just like in a criminal case. The difference is, in a civil case, the jury can draw negative inferences from the witness’ silence. So, a plaintiff’s lawyer could tell the jury that they can infer that something bad happened from the players’ taking the fifth.

However, if you’re talking about players who are not accused of committing the rape, there’s a more fundamental problem—she doesn’t have a legal cause of action against those guys. The law only recognizes certain things as injuries that you can recover damages for. Battery would be one such thing. But if you’re talking about people who never touched her, there’s really no claim. That they generally acted rowdy around her? That’s not something you can get sued for (thank goodness). That they covered up a crime? This may sound harsh, but there’s no claim there either. Civil courts generally do not offer redress for stigmatic or symbolic injuries. If anybody is covering up a crime, in the view of the law the injured party is the State of North Carolina.

Which brings me to another point. Since this case was presented to the public as an investigation of the entire Duke lacrosse team (or at least the 46 white guys), a lot of people have the impression that anything that any one of those guys did is fair game in the eventual trial. Just because the media is allowed to put all 46 guys (and, to some eyes, the entire university) on trial, that doesn’t mean the state can do so. They have to try Reade and Collin on what the evidence shows they did. Most of what the other guys did (send stupid emails, make racist remarks after the alleged rape) is juicy stuff for the media trial, but it’s irrelevant to the actual case. To bring the other guys in, and make what they did relevant, the state would have to charge them with crimes. Until then, there’s not much sense in speculating on what might happen to the other guys.

Sharon -

Where did you read that she claimed never to have been in the bathroom?

Standard disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

It depends on what happened and whether or not they are implicated in it. If nothing illegal happened, no crime; if they had no material knowledge of what happened, no crime.

Theoretically they could get hit with obstruction charges if they did know something and refused to answer questions about it if asked, but the DA would have to show that whatever evidence they could have provided would have been material to his case and that they had no legitimate worry about any self-incrimination whatsoever (the right against self-incrimination even applies to crimes where there is no risk of imprisonment).

Since Nifong apparently hasn’t offered any form of immunity to any of the players, nor (for that matter) bothered to ask to interview the players with lawyers present, I doubt the obstruction charge flies.

Dan,

The exculpatory evidence for Seligman is not part of the official investigative records. I suspect that the defense lawyer wished to present the evidence he presented to the press to the DA, but the DA refused until he could subpeona a complete testimony from the accused.

At this point, the DA has already charged Seligman, so it’s in the state’s best interest to compel as much cooperation from the accused using the rules of the court before chosing to consider incomplete evidence which was gathered by the defense team. Evidence which was appropriated outside the official police investigation process.

The same evidence which the defense team is now presenting could have been gathered by the police in an official investigation if Seligman had cooperated. Of course, it doesn’t mean that they would have.

Chris may have some salient insights to the appropriate prosecution.

Just a test comment here as a compliment from someone who found this blog and has appreciated the high quality.

I want to underline that piecing together a full and reliable timeline is key. Without it the speculations have sand for a foundation. There’s a “composite timeline” somewhere in the frenzy at courttv which is pretty good, and one could take that and add these latest phone calls. Also, it should be interesting to nail down when the various cars were seen. Keep in mind that even times which are precise may not be accurate, unless they’re from something operationally synced to standard time. Records from the police and phone and banking systems, probably good; from other corporate and personal clocks, probably somewhat fast or slow.

Also, a small correction. Regarding the photo IDs discussed earlier, the chance of her picking (at random) at least one person not at the party would be calculated like 1 – 30/46 * 29/45 * 28/44 = 0.73. Finnerty may be arguing that is just what happened.

Baconbits—I’ve found another helpful timeline here:

And ditto on the quality—Kudos to Chris! (And his fair-minded commenters.)

I misinterpreted the accounts I read. Here’s one link where Kim says she wasn’t in the bathroom when the supposed rape happened. I thought she hadn’t gone in the bathroom at all, but maybe earlier. But then, how many times was the victim in the bathroom: once with Kim, then again when the supposed attack occurred?

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory?id=1870615

Thanks for that one; I found yet another at http://brainster.blogspot.com/2006_04_16_brainster_archive.html. None of them is quite complete. For example I remember reading comments from the neighbour that he saw the women arriving, and some from the taxi driver regarding white or black cars the second time he was there. Mentally I’m hoping for (but not seeing) clues for interpreting the times from that camera, which may be the least accurate clock of the lot (if ordinary), or the most accurate (if on some phone synced to GPS).

Baconbits – regarding the camera.

I checked out the two camera phones I have and neither have time stamps on the photos available. MIne are the LG and Audiovox phones – does anyone have a camera which takes time stamp photos?

I agree with Baconbits…this blog seems to keep moving along with insightful discussion. I happened to visit the fencesitter forum at CourtTV and read an interesting comment there.

Two misconceptions being generated by the defense possibly:

1.) The captains volunteered to take lie detector tests and spoke with authorities, after a team meeting…the other players were told to do neither. The idea that the entire team volunteered is false, only the 3 captains. If these 3 were not in the bathroom, they did not witness a crime.

2.) Seligman shows up prominently on the photos released by the defense, and he is big enough to be hard to miss. Also the captains were shown a photo roster of the team to identify who was at the party. Just a coincidence the guy fingered gets left off their list?

Azbbalfan…Why rush the charge if something like this was possible? Most of the legal experts(especially the prosecutors) on these news shows state that when the defense offers evidence you should take it. This seems pretty intuitive to me.

Toucs….Rather than trying to interpret motives and speculate on elaborate theories I would rather stay with the easy stuff like no DNA(despite a savage gang rape and an immediate rape kit) and a rock solid alibi(with diverse sources such as Verizon, Wachovia and a cab drivers log). Sometimes people who have a preconceived bias of what happened think of the extreme outliers rather than facing the more probable scenario.

I will say it again that the Duke lacrosse team instituted a suicidal defense of declaring that no sex took place that night prior to the DNA results. The only possible reason that defendants with great lawyers make this proclaimation is because they know that nothing happened. If I had just dropped in on this case this would be the first thing to strike me.

Dan,

I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a legal expert. But I have had enough personal and business experience in the law to make me roll my eyes at most “legal experts” on the news.

There is no evidence that the defense offered the pictures to the DA. All we have is a defense attorney saying “as was reported to me, the DA was not interested in (the pictures) an exchange”.

Probably what we have is a defense attorney offering to hand over “some exculpatory evidence” in exchage for some form of immunity. Or, “we’ll help you investigate this matter if you just let us do the work for you”.

Which, if I’m the DA – I tell them – “see y’all in court”.

Please be careful about using terms like “rock solid alibi” before the evidence can be presented and evaluated.

Finally, I believe that not all of the Duke lacrosse team’s lawyers have said that their clients deny any sex happened at the party. There was no suicidal defense.

Azbballfan,

I am not a lawyer either(although my old man is and he will attest to the fact that there are no shortage of self proclaimed leagl experts in this world), but do know that an alibi defense is extremely rare in a case like this. I also respectfully disagree that the defense is looking for some deal. If Nifong is looking for leverage of upping community services hours on the fifteen “urinators” I doubt he has a deepthroat within the team.

I also disagree that it hasn’t been made public that “no sex “took place at this party. These defense attorneys have acted in concert(probably under the careful orchestration by Bennett) and have been very consistent with this claim. Maybe this board has a different opinion, but I doubt it.

If the Newsweek writer(who wrote a very balanced article) thinks that the alibi is solid after seeing the evidence then I will take her work for it. “Rock “Solid may have been a little strong, but you seem to place no importance on it. Seligmann was also noted to be joking and acting normal in the cab. This is obviously trumped in importance by the timestamps of his cellphone, ATM and dorm card reader.

Well in a moment of weakness, I just watched RIta Cosby…who interviewed the AV’s father, again. He says that she says…that she was raped with a broom.

This has been discussed as a possible explanation for no DNA…but if the case, why no broom in the search warrant?

I watched Rite too. The defense guy stated that the charges would have been sodomy instead of rape if this was her initial story. he also mentioned that she is changing her story after the facts(initial DNA test) don’t corroborate her intial one.

The broom clearly would have been mentioned in the original search warrant. This is starting to get ridiculous.

The father mentioned on Rita that the AV did a week in a Pysch hospital in 05. This wasn’t exactly 1996 and should be extremely relevant.

> does anyone have a camera which takes time stamp photos?

I do, and it is at least five years old (1.3 Mpixel generation, just a camera and not a phone). Without going to check, I recall it’s optional whether the time is visually imprinted in the photo, but it’s available regardless. (See someone’s comments here on a past thread about DOS-format storage and timestamps etc.) The party photos I’ve seen look like some TV editor has added the reported times with a title generator.

If theirs is just a camera, I wouldn’t expect its clock to be more accurate than my car’s. A newish camera phone might be able to sync time with caller ID or, in latest models, GPS. The news reports I’ve seen just say camera(s), and some seem to suggest more than one. For now I think the photos’ timeframe should be considered shiftable. For instance it is curious that the dancers’ performance is pegged to start right at midnight. (I’m looking at http://www.wral.com/news/8764090/detail.html as a primary source on times; and in http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,191096,00.html lawyer Thomas refers to at least two cameras.)

Dan and others,

Question: Are any public statements made by the defense admissable in court? Is there ever a defense attorney in a high profile case who doesn’t submit the blanket “denial” statement?

As for the alibi defense – again, take it with a grain of salt since it was presented by defense attorneys to the media before the prosecution has the evidence. Who knows what their strategy is. If their client is innocent – why not just wait for the process to play out? They could be trying to establish a timeline of events in the public and media.

tuocs – excellent point about the broom – regardless of whether or not the police knew about the alleged broom rape, it would be a very dramatic peice of evidence to use when explaining the chain of events to a jury.

Followup and apology.

I looked and saw elsewhere that attorney Bill Thomas is reported as representing one of the team captains, thus perhaps (speculating here) the occupants who booked the dancers had cameras ready.

Apology that I wandered in here with comments on several matters and wound up diverting a topic originally about time of phone calls.

Well, my new camera phone (Samsung A940) does timestamp photos in the EXIF data. My old phone apparently didn’t (I just checked a picture I took in Flickr).

On this comment, I don’t think that the cooperation/lack thereof has been misrepresented by the defense, although perhaps some of the talking heads have gotten confused (big shock there).

As for Seligmann, I think I’ve addressed that before here; there are plenty of reasonable explanations why the list would be wrong, and it apparently led to no problems since Nifong ignored the list anyway.

Azbballfan….ABC news and Newsweek have seen the evidence. They are not the defense attorneys and seem to verify it. I share your skepticism of the media, but it is pretty hard to misinterpret an ATM receipt or cellphone bill. I think that even you will admit that.

The defense attorneys want these case thrown out before it hits the courtroom. This is a perfectly reasonable strategy as the reward of a full disclosure exoneration(via a trial) is not worth the risk of a life in jail(god knows some of these juries are shaky in high exposure cases).

You also seem to think that the AV gets a full leash to move her story around after the facts come in. She initially fingered Adam, Matt and Brett with a rape charge. She then switched to a rape charge for Reade and Collin after a hazy ID three weeks after the incident. Now it is a Glen Ridge style sodomy by Reade and Collin. Throw in her horrid past, one on one dates and week in a phych hospital in 05 and I have a lot of doubt before even hearing about DNA or alibis.

Dan,

Please do not misrepresent the reporting of ABC News and Newsweek.

The accuser originally stated that the players used the names of Adam, Matt, and Brett. She also clearly stated that during the encounter players called themselves names different than those which others used to call them. This was stated in the warrant to search Ryan’s dorm room. At least one of the players stated he used a false name.

You seem ready to spread a lot of suspicion about the case. Please re-read the evidence you claim to quote. It’s hard not to call you out as a defense team troll.

How am I misrepresenting the reporting of ABC news and Newsweek? It is in print. i don’t get what you are trying to say. If the late Mother Theresa vouched that she saw these two guys in India at the time of the incident you would claim that her word deosn’t count as it has not been brought up at trial. I can’t reason with you if you don’t take seriously eyewitness media reviews or third party time records.

The only use of a fake name in print was that of the guy who scheduled the party. This would be a reasonable thing to do. Having the whole team using fake names at the party seems a bit farfetched.

For the record I hated Duke and the sport of lacrosse(I am a baseball guy who agrees with that Slate article on the cult aspect of the sport). I also think that there are few worse crime in the world than a false accusation and think that the AV’s claim is a longshot at best.

Azbballfan called me out on being sloppy with the facts. That was harsh in my opinion. Here is the ABC News review of the evidence:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/LegalCenter/story?id=1858806&page=1

I am interested if this intelligent board thinks that azballfan or I am the one off base.

I remain baffled by the lack of inquiry into where the AV was before the “party”.

She arrived alone, half an hour late, “dropped off” by who knows who, and already bruised and bleeding, apparently as was documented by photos, and already dressed in her strip-tease garb (unusual, so they say—street clothes would have been more routine).

Was she at an earlier “party”, or maybe with a boyfriend? If so, what happened there? What was she doing earlier in the evening that accounted for her bruises and bleeding? Why was she 30 minutes late for the lacrosse party? Domestic issues, perhaps?

How is it that she arrived bruised, battered, and bleeding, and then had more abuse heaped on her in the course of 30 minutes? Just bad luck?

I have a hard time believing that nobody’s looking into her earlier whereabouts on that evening, and would expect that something will surface sooner rather than later.

Dan,

You misrepresented the ABC and Newsweek articles by implying they exonorated the accused. Neither article does. In fact, the Newsweek article points to facts which indicate the guilt of the accused.

Your later post accurately links to an ABC news report and further implies it represents facts exonorating the accused. It does not.

The warrant for the search of Ryan’s room states the expectation that false names were used by more than one party.

Please be a bit more careful of your posts. Chris has maintained a careful presentation of facts. Your posts are wild misrepresentations and do not help.

Dan-

Don’t worry bout azbballfan. He is a professional taunter who hasn’t brought anything to the table but reflexive opposition, from what I can see.

Nifong’s affect at the da forum was strange. His current mix of defensiveness and overweening arrogance doesn’t work well and threatens to make him supportless in weeks.

At some point, somebody will have to step up to rein him in. I suspect that is up to the mayor and state politicians to do.

Jim: You hit the nail on the head. Where was she before, who dropped her off, how was she planning on getting home or to another ‘job’ that night? I can only imagine the people that may be called to testify if this goes to trial – the escort company owner, their dispatcher, someone that explains the costs and services, the three johns she was with earlier that week, her W2 (oh, there isn’t one, what a surprise).

Then of course we haven’t been filled in on the gaps from 12:53 to Kroger a half hour later to her admittance to Duke Med over an hour after that – besides a trip to the drunk tank/psych center (how far away are those places?). There’s Kim (her phone log and any missed calls to the AV’s cell that was left behind), the security guard, at least two responding DPD officers, allegedly the boyfriend was somehow contacted and either arrived with or met her at the hospital where she allegedly showed up in different clothes than what she had on at the party.

Chris – you mentioned it was spring break so the majority of Duke students weren’t around. Do you think that might have played into the decision to hire the strippers to come to the house instead of perhaps a hotel suite since they obviously wanted to maintain anonymity by using an alias while booking the entertainment? Or if it is some sort of lacrosse team tradition to have this type of party once a year might we see some testimony from performers in previous years as to the behavior of the boys then?

If these guys were covering up a crime, why in the world would the AV’s purse/make-up bag, cash, phone and nails still be at the house two days later (were these items randomly found around the house or bundled together as if the AV might call or come by to come pick them up)? Also, why would the bathroom not be scrubbed down with the towels and rug removed/washed? Why would Duke kids take relatively long to ‘lawyer-up’?
And of course, why wouldn’t they claim consensual/purchased sex instead of denying any DNA would be found?

My apologies for the long post, this site is by far the most reasonable one that I have seen on this whole scandal because of the intelligence of the posters and Chris’ finger on the pulse of students and familiarity with Durham. No racial baiting, no keyboard catfights, immediately recognizing that weak cut and paste job from Karl and simple overall reason.

Thanks DJ…I thought it was just me. You can’t force someone to believe that a strong alibi is present and that the evidence has been reviwed by two news sources. Azballban seems like the type person who would focus his home improvement dollars on stereo wiring when the foundation of his house is crumbling. Probability theory clearly isn’t important to him as he is focusing on the captains party list rather than more important things. When Catherine Crier and Susan Filan say that is is a good alibi you have faith that even the least malleable people can see the light.

NRH,
I don’t really think they would have considered holding the party in to a hotel room. As anyone who has been involved in sports or sororities/fraternities in college knows, stripper parties are pretty much a rite of passage. Eventually every group is going to throw one. I can tell you that at my school the women’s soccer team, women’s lacrosse team, men’s baseball team, my fraternity, and one of my girlfiend’s sororities all had stripper parties that I personally know about. I also physically attended a stripper party thrown by the U of Penn basketball team. The normalcy of this type of activity is one of the things that is really not getting out in the media, and perhaps it is just a cultural/generational issue. Especially obnoxius is the suggestion that I hear a lot on these shows that the stripper party is evidence of some sort of male pathology. Sororities thow these kinds of things with just as much, if not more frequency than the frats.

I understand Scott – college wasn’t that long ago for me and I ran around with the crowd you described. The talent was a little more reputable and they never failed to show without a bodyguard or two to lay down the ground rules, take care of the money, etc. I was just thinking since they were athletes, the team had apparently been told to watch their step, it was a Duke owned home on what looks like a busy street without a lot separation from the neighbors (who reportedly had complained before), that they thought it might be okay on a Monday night of spring break versus the option of getting a room. Plus you mentioned the right of passage, which I was speculating about previous times and the chance for them to be called as relevant witnesses if it goes to trial.

NRH, You may be correct in thinking this was a once of year type thing for the lax team. As one who played, often times during spring break lax teams will hold some sort of special party since they are some of the only ones around.

Great comments on this post. To the original post, though, I’m a little unclear what would happen, procedurally, if it does turn out that the AV simply confused Reade for Tony McDevitt. How would this be handled? I would assume it would diminish any previous ID’s (Collin) and subsequent ID’s that she would make, but anyone have any idea what steps would be taken to correct this, or would it render the AV’s entire case unrecoverable?

Steve: Arrest ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out??? [joke]

Durham PD: man who apparently kept trying to snatch young children didn’t commit a crime. It was all a “misunderstanding,” according to Durham PD. Please, someone explain their logic…. I’m at a loss….

http://www.wral.com/news/9008255/detail.html

DURHAM, N.C.—Durham police say what was reported to them as an attempted abduction was actually a misunderstanding.

Police investigators said Tuesday they were looking for a man who had tried to lure a 4-year-old boy into his van on Saturday by promising him a teddy bear, but sped away when the child’s mother approached. Then, on Monday, the man tried to snatch a 6-year-old girl when a neighbor intervened.

But after interviews over the last two days with the suspect, several neighbors and one of the children, police determined no crime had occurred, a police spokeswoman Kammie Michael said in a news release issued Wednesday morning.

The suspect, who was very cooperative in the investigation, will not be charged, Michael said. She did not say how the case was a misunderstanding.

S-H, with Nifong thinking he IS God, this might not be so far from the truth!

Two comments…

- Chris, outstanding job with this blog. It is a daily must-read for anyone following this investigation.

- Ferdinand, can you post the link to the MSNBC transcript of the AP interview with Kim Roberts? I’ve tried Google and I can’t seem to find it.

Thanks.

Maybe a spring break party had become tradition, but I doubt the strippers had, else they might have arranged them with a (cough) gentlemen’s club rather than calling an escort service on a few hours’ notice. “Hi, can you deliver two servings of bachelor party, white meat please, with extra high heels?”

> [what if] the AV simply confused Reade for Tony McDevitt?

We’ve seen before that Adam matches an alias created by Dan, and that Brett may be a misheard Breck. Could Matt be a misheard Mac? I’d be curious to see another source of pictures for all the players, now that the goduke pages have been pulled.

Jay,

You can find the quote from Kim in the transcipt of the Dan Abrams show. Sorry, I don’t have the transcript for the entire AP interview, just the portion shown on his program.

After visiting the CourtTV fence-sitter thread again…I am starting to think this scenario played out one of two ways….

1.) Feeling threatened…the two dancers locked themelves in the bathroom. The AV may/may not have been drunk or slipped a date-raped drug. At some point they eventually left together. How/when they came out of the bathroom seems to be rather vague.

2.) At some point the AV ended up in the bathroom with 3 lacrosse players…once again she may/may not have been under the influence. She eventually leaves with the other dancer.

It seems to me, that of all the issues being discussed on these boards and on the news…the only statements addressing this seems to be coming from the players. Kim’s statements are enormously vague about this.

From what I heard on TV, Kim’s lawyer has limited what she can say to protect her testimony.

One important point is that the players themselves put the woman in the bathroom for 20 minutes and this is the time that should be investigated. Not all the men have had to have been in there at the same time, or for the whole time. And from watching other cases, it is often amazing what can happen in short times.

If one is innocent of rape, there is no need to attack the accuser. Just stick to facts, the truth. If you have an alibi, fine. Not necessary to bash the accuser or stay silent.

Lastly, can you put your phone on auto redial and let it call a number that you know won’t answer?