Free Republic

DURHAM, N.C., July 1 (UPI) -- A Durham, N.C., Democratic official and her husband face criminal charges in connection with alleged satanic rituals. Joy Johnson, 30, a third vice-chairwoman of the Durham County Democratic Party and vice chairwoman of the Young Democrats, was charged Friday with two counts of aiding and abetting. Her husband, Joseph Scott Craig, 25, was charged with second-degree rape, second-degree kidnapping and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon for incidents in January and May, the Raleigh News & Observer reported Tuesday. Mark McCullough, an assistant district attorney ...acknowledged that "part of the allegations are...

It was a Friday afternoon, and Dr. Allan Friedman was headed for a vacation in Canada when his cell phone rang. Sen. Ted Kennedy, newly diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor, had searched the nation for the best neurosurgeon to remove the growth -- and he wanted Friedman. By the following Monday, a horde of reporters was camped outside Duke Medical Center, and Friedman was performing a tricky operation inside the brain of one of the country's most powerful politicians. It was at once an honor and a burden for a man who has spent 34 years building a reputation...

A Kentucky judge has confirmed what Duke fans have known for years: their football team is as bad as it gets. Bad enough that Louisville should have to find another football team to replace the Blue Devils without penalty after Duke pulled out of the final three games of a four-game contract last season. In a lawsuit filed late last year, Louisville asked for $450,000 in damages and any additional damages the court saw fit. But Duke's lawyers argued that the Blue Devils' performance on the field was so poor that any Division I team would suffice as a replacement....

Some Duke professors are challenging the conventional "miles per gallon" terminology employed by the automobile industry. Researchers with Duke's Fuqua School of Business say that posting a vehicle's fuel efficiency in "gallons per mile" rather than "miles per gallon" would help motorists make better decisions when buying a new car. The study will appear in the June 20 issue of Science magazine. It was inspired by a debate professors Richard Larrick and Jack Soll had while carpooling in a hybrid car, according to a Duke press release. The two management professors ran experiments showing current "miles per gallon" terminology led...

DURHAM — Former District Attorney Mike Nifong will not be able to hide from a lawsuit in bankruptcy court, a federal judge ruled today. The three exonerated lacrosse players who filed suit against the fallen prosecutor in October will be able to pursue their claims in federal civil court, Judge William L. Stocks ruled. The ruling came more than a month after lawyers representing the players and Nifong presented their arguments in court. Nifong was stripped of his law license and ousted from office last summer for his misconduct in the Duke lacrosse case. Nifong was supposed to file a...

Collin Finnerty wanted Loyola to win in its NCAA Tournament assignment Saturday afternoon at Duke, where awkward moments could have superseded anything else. The top-seeded Blue Devils defeated Loyola as expected in men's lacrosse, then took aside a former teammate and shared a special moment. Finnerty posed for an impromptu photograph near midfield with his ex-teammates, capping a strange get-together on a splendid, yet windy, Saturday afternoon at nearly full Koskinen Stadium. Duke players say Finnerty remains part of their group even though he wore the opposing uniform during the Blue Devils' 12-7 victory. He was one of the three...

ONE OF THE great joys of the movies is their ability to convince us that we know the people on screen. Even the varied performances of the most versatile stars are often not strong enough to prevail against the overarching image we’ve formed of them. When Joan Didion met John Wayne on the set of the 1965 The Sons of Katie Elder, she wrote of having the sense that his face was more familiar to her than her husband’s. And yet Wayne, whose centenary occurred this past spring, remains in some ways the most undefined of iconic movie stars. When...

Thursday, May 01, 2008 LieStoppers is open for Business Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the Blog Hooligans we have now opened the Meeting Place for viewers. A giant thanks is given to our "Tony Soprano." What he has personally accomplished since last Saturday is truly amazing! Viewers can now read the threads without registering. More importantly it means that the efforts of those who tried to prevent them from learning the facts of the Hoax/Frame have failed. The dirty laundry of those in Durham and at Duke who perpetrated this attempted frame of the 2006 Duke Lacrosse Team will...

Published: Apr 28, 2008 12:30 AM Modified: Apr 28, 2008 01:44 AM Sexual assault reported in Durham From Staff Reports Durham Police are investigating a reported sexual assault in the 900 block of Gilbert Street at 7:51 a.m. Sunday. The victim was taken to Durham Regional Hospital for treatment.

CRIME LOG From staff reports : The Herald-Sun news@heraldsun.com Apr 27, 2008 Three charges for rape suspect DURHAM -- Police have charged a Durham man with first-degree rape, assault on a female and second-degree trespassing in connection with an incident that allegedly occurred on April 22. Eric Dwayne Thomas, 35, of 704 E. Maynard Ave., Durham, was held in the Durham County Jail pending a $750,000 secured bond on the rape charge. City police arrested him Friday. A magistrate also ordered that Thomas be held without bond for up to 48 hours in connection with the assault on a female...

Deadline moved for federal lacrosse suit By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun gronberg@heraldsun.com Apr 26, 2008 DURHAM -- Lawyers on both sides of one of the three federal civil-rights lawsuits stemming from the Duke lacrosse case have agreed to move back a deadline for the city government and Duke University to file dismissal motions. Defense motions in the case filed by unindicted lacrosse players Breck Archer, Ryan McFadyen and Matt Wilson had been due Friday. But instead, lawyers for the players, the city, Duke and other defendants agreed to wait until July 2. The delay will give defense lawyers time...

Flesh and the College by: Deborah Lambert, April 22, 2008 The “Sex Workers Art Show” traveled to several campuses earlier this year, causing raised eyebrows at some venues and–an uproar at others like the College of William and Mary and Duke University. Although the show’s founder claims that the purpose of their performance is to dignify and “humanize sex workers” and “dispel the myth that [strippers and prostitutes] are anything short of artists, innovators, and geniuses,” the descriptions of the show “make it sound prurient, degrading and, above all, dehumanizing,” says the Education Reporter. Debate over the show at William...

WINSTON-SALEM -- U.S. District Court Judge James Beaty Jr. on Tuesday denied a motion for sanctions filed by Duke University and the City of Durham and ruled that the legal team for 38 members of the 2005-06 Duke lacrosse team had violated ethical rules by using a Web site, news conference and news release to publicize the filing of their case. The players have filed a civil rights lawsuit against Duke and the city, demanding reparations arising from the since dismissed Duke lacrosse sexual offense case. Beaty also ruled, however, that the content published on that Web site -- www.dukelawsuit.com...

“Alan from Upland CA” has finally stepped up to challenge Tony Wicher’s anti-Semitic hate speech at Barack Obama’s official Web site. ...Alan replies to Mr. Wicher’s “Obama’s Jewish Problem” as follows. Obama’s sanction of Wicher’s commentary, plus his unbelieveable cowardice (heck, he all but called Abraham Lincoln a “Racist”) in denouncing the Black Nazi Wright is enough of a turn-off. Wicher just adds more fuel to the fire. Could have been set by David Duke or Farrakhan... ...Tony Wicher’s and Desmond Tutu’s terminology for Zionists and even Jews is identical to material from David Duke’s Web site. Again, all this...

Wicher repeatedly refers to Israel as an apartheid state, and in fact claims that Israel’s treatment of Palestinian Authority Arabs is “worse than apartheid.” ...He dismisses any who call his claims of Israeli “apartheid” anti-Semitic as members of the “Zionist thought police.”

Sports Director Jim Henderson reports that Duke Athletic Director Joe Alleva will be named as the new AD at LSU.

Director of Athletics Joe Alleva has been named one of six finalists for the athletic director position at Louisiana State University, LSU officials announced and Duke representatives confirmed Monday. According to a statement released Monday afternoon by Louisiana State University, the six named finalists will be interviewed by the Athletic Director Search Committee Wednesday at the Law Center on the Baton Rouge campus. The committee also intends to make its final recommendations of candidates to Acting LSU Chancellor William Jenkins Wednesday. "I have been contacted by a representative of Louisiana State University regarding its vacant athletics director position and am...

As the founder and sole member of the Sheldon Award Society, I am dedicated to identifying the worst college president of each academic year. So far the presidents or chancellors of Berkeley, Georgetown, DePaul, and countless other universities have copped the Sheldon. Somewhat mysteriously, none offered to resign. snip The last of our three finalists is president of Duke, Richard Brodhead. Because Michael Nifong made himself such a spectacular villain in the lacrosse case, Mr. Brodhead escaped without much criticism. But here is what Mr. Brodhead did: On hearing the first reports, he abruptly canceled the lacrosse season, suspended the...

DURHAM - A 17-year-old charged with killing a UNC-Chapel Hill student leader and a graduate student at Duke University appeared this morning before a Durham County judge who delivered a call for anti-gang legislation. Laurence Alvin Lovette appeared stone-faced before District Court Judge Craig Brown, who used the hearing to urge legislators to pass laws to fight gangs. "We absolutely positively need to have anti-gang legislation passed by the General Assembly," Brown said. "I respectfully and sincerely ask the governor to call a special session of the legislature." Authorities have not said whether Lovette was a member of a gang....

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Authorities have charged a suspect in the slaying of the University of North Carolina student president with the January killing of a Duke University graduate student. A warrant filed Thursday charges 17-year-old Lawrence Alvin Lovette Jr. with first-degree murder in the death of Abhijit Mahato. The 29-year-old computational mechanics doctoral student was found shot to death inside his apartment in January. Authorities have charged both Lovette and Demario James Atwater with first-degree murder in the death of Eve Carson. The 22-year-old was found last week lying on a street about a mile from campus.

2 in lacrosse case quit police force Principal investigators in the case have resigned, the Durham police chief says Stanley B. Chambers Jr., Staff Writer DURHAM - Sgt. Mark Gottlieb and Investigator Benjamin Himan, the Durham Police Department's principal investigators in the Duke lacrosse case, have both left the department in the past several weeks, Chief Jose L. Lopez said Tuesday. Gottlieb, who joined the department in 1992, had contemplated leaving for a few months, Lopez said. "I did not ask him to leave," Lopez said. "I wasn't looking for his resignation." Lopez said Himan, a Durham officer since 2002,...

At the end of February 2004, I wrote a letter that would never be received. The intended recipient was Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texas prisoner on death row. Months earlier, Willingham had written me a ten-page, hand-printed essay about his life in solitary confinement and his last experience in the open air. In it, he recalled a cluster of "blazing purple flowers," the first he had seen in more than eight years. The flowers were "gifts to the world," he wrote, reminding him of his own gifts, which had been "taken away." This was a reference to Willingham's daughters, and...

Officers from both the Durham Police Department and the Duke University Police Department responded to reports early Monday morning of a possible narcotics violation by a student in Bell Tower Residence Hall, sources confirmed. DUPD Maj. Gloria Graham said a residence coordinator contacted police about the violation, but when officers arrived on site and tested the substance in question they determined that it was aspirin. No arrest was made and officers left the building at about 1:30 a.m., students said. Chris Ellis, the residence coordinator for Bell Tower, Blackwell and Randolph dormitories, did not respond to requests for comment Monday...

Friday, February 29, 2008 Duke files motion to take down this website Duke and other defendants have filed a motion to shut down this website. Click here to read it. Posted by Bob at 2:48 PM

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - More than three dozen current and former Duke lacrosse players claim in a lawsuit they suffered emotional distress during the furor over the now-discredited rape case against three of their teammates. Attorneys planned to file a federal lawsuit Thursday in North Carolina that accuses Duke University, the City of Durham and several school and police officials of fraud, abuse, and breach of duty for supporting the prosecution of the case. Lead attorney Chuck Cooper said the private university turned its back on the players to protect the school's image. "These young men want an acknowledgment that...

Thirty-eight current and former Duke lacrosse players are filing suit against Duke University, according to an email I just got from the Robert H. Bork Jr. PR firm. The parents of the players will formally announce the suit tomorrow at 1 p.m. at the National Press Club: Charles J. Cooper, attorney for the players will explain the complaint and answer questions from the media. Only credentialed media will be allowed. Media who are unable to be present at the news conference may call (888) 882-0114 to hear audio from the event and ask questions during the Q&A. The complaint and...

When a mentally deluded stripper accused three Duke University lacrosse players of a brutal gang rape at a March 2006 off-campus team party during spring break, dozens of activist Duke professors were not content merely to give great credence to the rape charge, even as evidence of its probable fraudulence poured into the public record. They also treated the lacrosse players as pariahs for having hired strippers at all. So, too, did Duke President Richard Brodhead, Board Chairman Robert Steel, other campus administrators, many in the media, and others. Never mind that hiring strippers violated no law or university rule....

DURHAM -- Duke University has added a former deputy attorney general of the United States to the legal team that will defend it against a federal civil-rights lawsuit filed by three members of the 2005-06 men's lacrosse team. Court papers filed this week indicate that Washington, D.C., attorney Jamie Gorelick will assist two Greensboro litigators in representing the school. They're also the attorneys of record for the Duke University Police Department, Board of Trustees Chairman Robert Steel, school President Richard Brodhead and numerous other university officials. Gorelick was deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration, and in that capacity was...

Two years ago, the infamous Duke lacrosse case started with a group of lacrosse players hiring a pair of strippers to dance and otherwise "perform" at a rowdy house party. Fast forward two years, to Sunday night. While the rest of the world watched the Giants defeat the Patriots in the Super Bowl, about 300 students and others attended the Sex Workers Art Show, in which strippers and prostitutes were hired to dance and otherwise "perform." (snip) The event was paid for by the Student Health Center, the University Fund, the Women's Center, Sexual Assault Support Services, the Women's Studies...

CRIME WAVE SWEEPS DURHAM Grad student killed in off-campus apartment By: Chelsea Allison Posted: 1/18/08 A Duke graduate student was found shot to death at 11:30 p.m. Friday inside his home at The Anderson Apartments, just 1.6 miles from West Campus. Abhijit Mahato, 29, was a second-year Ph.D. candidate in the Pratt School of Engineering studying computational contact mechanics. The Durham Police Department is treating the crime as a homicide, which authorities said appeared to be motivated by robbery. It was the city's second murder of the year, with 2008's first killing occurring just hours earlier on Burke Street, 1.4...

Former District Attorney Mike Nifong filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday as city leaders, police and other officials began answering one of the federal civil-rights lawsuits triggered by the Duke lacrosse case. Meanwhile, the first replies from defendants in the Evans/Finnerty/Seligmann lawsuit came Tuesday from Nifong's former investigator, Linwood Wilson, and DNA Securities Inc., the Burlington lab that tested samples gathered from the players and stripper who falsely accused them. Late Tuesday, dismissal motions were also filed on behalf of City Manager Patrick Baker, former Police Chief Steve Chalmers, Deputy Police Chief Ron Hodge, Maj. Beverly Council, Maj. Lee Russ, Capt....

Michael Nifong, the former North Carolina district attorney who unsuccessfully prosecuted Duke University lacrosse players for rape, sought bankruptcy protection from creditors including the athletes. Nifong, listed debt of $180.3 million and assets of $243,898 in documents filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Durham, North Carolina. The prosecutor stepped down last year. North Carolina officials stripped him of his law license for unethical conduct in the 2006 investigation of the allegations against the players. The three former players who had rape charges against them dropped sued Nifong in federal court in Durham in October. Collin Finnerty, David F. Evans...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Monkeys performed about as well as college students at mental addition, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a finding that suggests nonverbal math skills are not unique to humans. The research from Duke University follows the finding by Japanese researchers earlier this month that young chimpanzees performed better than human adults at a memory game. Prior studies have found non-human primates can match numbers of objects, compare numbers and choose the larger number of two sets of objects. "This is the first study that looked at whether or not they could make explicit decisions that were based...

Baker added to Duke lacrosse suit By Anne Blythe, Staff Writer The lawyers representing the three exonerated lacrosse players amended the civil suit in federal court today to include City Manager Patrick Baker as one of the officials they are suing. Baker announced today that he would be stepping aside at the end of the year as city manager to become city attorney, a job that comes with a higher salary but less decision-making power. As Baker met with reporters to discuss his plans to end a tumultuous three years as the city's manager, the lawyers for the exonerated lacrosse...

Since its inception in 1870, the U.S. Department of Justice has had among its chief duties "to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior" and "to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans." Within that context, it is very difficult to accept the Justice Department's Dec. 3 decision not to investigate modern America's highest-profile case of prosecutorial misconduct, also known as former Durham district attorney Mike Nifong's handling of the lacrosse case. The justification for such an inquiry was undeniable: As Jim Cooney, the leader of Reade Seligmann's defense team, explained in an October 2007...

-- snip --These exciting moments of high drama provided the exclamation points for a deep and thoughtful conversation. Rove spoke passionately and pursuasively about the threat of global Jihadism, the stakes in Iraq, Bush's achievements at home and overseas--all the while painting a picture of Bush as a man of intellect who invites diversity and pluralism into the Oval Office. While protestors may be shocked at the mere suggestion that radical Islam, not Karl Rove, is the actual threat to human rights around the world, the real story of the night is that a number of students left with a...

Burlington — The head of a private laboratory where DNA evidence in the Duke lacrosse case was tested no longer works there. The move comes less than a month after the former defendants filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Dr. Brian Meehan, former District Attorney Mike Nifong and several others involved in the investigation. Civil attorneys allege they were part of a "DNA conspiracy" and purposely withheld potentially exculpatory evidence that could have been used to clear their clients of the criminal charges against them. Neither Meehan nor his attorney would talk Monday about why he was replaced. DNA...

Durham — Several Durham police officers have been placed on leave pending a major internal investigation, and WRAL has learned the probe might center around sexual misconduct. Police Chief Jose Lopez said Thursday that the allegations surfaced shortly after he took over the department in September. He said less than 10 officers, ranging from rookies to veterans, were involved, but did not reveal any other details surrounding the accusations. When asked by WRAL's Julia Lewis whether police officers are under investigation for having sex with prostitutes, Lopez replied, "At this point and time, we are conducting and investigation into some...

The state wants a joint criminal investigation into the prosecution of players, a lawyer says The state attorney general has asked federal prosecutors to help conduct a criminal probe into former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong and other government officials involved with the Duke lacrosse case, according to a lawyer representing one of the three exonerated players. Charlotte lawyer Jim Cooney outlined the request in a three-page letter sent to three high-ranking U.S. Justice Department administrators. The letter was copied to Jim Coman, a special prosecutor for the state who led the criminal investigation that led to the exoneration of...

The Duke lacrosse case was a perfect example of the insanity of radical theories of gender and race which, among other ultra politically correct ideas, have permeated and destroyed our universities.... Broadhead – (noun) (‘brȯd-hed) 1: a: An authority figure who is easily intimidated, especially a high ranking university administrator. b: Politically correct chump who uses authority to disparage innocent students to score cheap popularity points with media and radical professors. “The Provost said what about me? What a Broadhead.” 2: a: Coward. b: person lacking in testicular fortitude. “Just do it you Broadhead!” Broadheaded – (transitive verb): to lose...

Do you agree with former men's lacrosse coach Mike Pressler's decision to sue the University? Yes No

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. --Former Duke University men's lacrosse coach Mike Pressler, who resigned under the pressure of allegations that three of his players raped a stripper, has filed a lawsuit against the private Durham university, school officials said Friday. ~ Snip ~ The Herald-Sun of Durham reported Friday night on its Web site that Pressler's lawsuit was filed in state court, alleging the university broke the terms of the confidential settlement when university senior vice president John Burness made disparaging comments about the former coach. The suit said one of the comments was made April 9 in Newsday, when Burness...

Many, many thanks to all of the FRiends who objectively posted comments about an American far, far worst then David Duke to the future of America. However, just as many Americans who happened to be born into the KKK found it hard to leave, the challenge is far greater for many black Americans due to the lack of alternatives being born on the Liberal plantation.

October 11, 2007 Some of the most depressing e-mails received over the past year and a half have been those that asked why I was worrying myself about three rich white guys at Duke University. Neither those three students accused of rape nor the District Attorney who accused them are the ultimate issue. If all District Attorneys in this country were like Michael Nifong, the United States of America would become the world's largest banana republic. Such levels of corruption in the law itself would make the American standard of living impossible. A steady diet of the racial polarization that...

After Al Sharpton demanded that Isiah Thomas apologize to the woman who beat him in court, Whoopie takes Big Al on regarding the Duke rape fiasco...

At this point, there seems little doubt about the ugliness that has simmered, and then boiled, in a little town in Louisiana called Jena. There is a lot that has already been said, and done, about the latent racism in the town that led to the display of nooses on a tree. Racism that led, in reaction, to six black youths brutally beating a young white man, and then the subsequent disproportionate sentencing, in which those black youths could have served prison time for trumped-up murder charges. Action has been taken, and will be taken, so that those charges, and...

Duke lacrosse players sue Nifong, city By AARON BEARD, Associated Press Writer 1 minute ago Three former Duke lacrosse players falsely accused of rape filed a federal lawsuit Friday against disgraced prosecutor Mike Nifong, the city of Durham and the police detectives who handled the investigation. The lawsuit calls the criminal case against Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans was "one of the most chilling episodes of premeditated police, prosecutorial and scientific misconduct in modern American history." The lawsuit seeks unspecified punitive and compensatory damages, attorneys fees and numerous reforms to the way the Durham Police Department handles criminal...

Durham Bull by: Malcolm A. Kline, October 02, 2007 Everything that is wrong with higher education, and, for that matter, most major media, was on stunning display for the past two years as the district attorney in Durham, North Carolina attempted to prosecute a bogus rape case against three Duke lacrosse players. All of the figures of authority at Duke who could have set the record straight and ended the persecution of a trio of lacrosse players tilted to the side of the ethically challenged DA. That record is laid out to a fare-thee-well in the book Until Proven Innocent...

Tuesday, October 2, 2007 On page 28 of last Sunday's New York Times, right opposite the page where the obituaries were, at the very bottom was a news item almost exactly the size of a 3-by-5 card. It was a fraction of an Associated Press dispatch about Richard Brodhead, president of Duke University, apologizing for "not having better supported" the Duke lacrosse players last year when they were accused of rape. When this story first broke last year, it was big news not only on the front page of the New York Times but on the editorial page as well....

DURHAM, N.C. — Duke University President Richard Brodhead apologized Saturday for not better supporting the men's lacrosse players falsely accused in last year's highly publicized rape scandal. "Given the complexities of this case, getting the communication right would never have been easy," Brodhead said. "But the fact is that we did not get it right, causing the families to feel abandoned when they were most in need of support. This was a mistake. I take responsibility for it and I apologize for it."