Free Republic

LSU AD Alleva Deposed in Duke Lacrosse Suit Posted by: Walter Abbott on Saturday, February 4, 2012, 18:20 Louisiana State University (LSU) Athletic Director Joe Alleva was deposed last month in a lawsuit filed nearly five years ago regarding the notorious Duke Lacrosse Case, where a prostitute falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape. Alleva was Duke’s athletic director at the time and was famously quoted as telling lacrosse coach Mike Pressler as he was cancelling the team’s season that “It’s not about the truth anymore,” because of the intense media coverage of the controversy. Mike Nifong, the...

A judge today suspended Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline from her elected office, ruling that there is probable cause that Cline should be removed permanently. Superior Court Judge Robert H. Hobgood of Franklin County set a hearing for Feb. 13 in which Cline will have a chance to defend her numerous court filings made over the past three months in a high-profile attack on Orlando Hudson, the senior judge in Durham. Hobgood was not required to suspend Cline before a hearing, but had the option under state law. Cline has been under scrutiny for her ongoing allegations against Hudson, allegations...

Here's a question: how can we expect to have small government if we condemn Congress for not growing it? It's always a disturbing experience when you're accosted with a picture of Harry Reid, as I was upon logging on to Drudge last Monday afternoon. But at least his image bore a fitting caption: "MOST FUTILE EVER." I then clicked the link and found myself at The Washington Times — normally a quite sane organ of the media — and learned the meaning of the caption: the Times was lamenting a do-nothing Congress and presented Reid as its poster boy. Writes...

DURHAM — Black students at Duke University are angry over a university research paper that found African-American undergraduates at the school are disproportionally more likely to switch from tough majors to easier ones. “The implications and intentions of this research at the hands of our very own prestigious faculty, seemingly without a genuine concern for proactively furthering the well-being of the black community is hurtful and alienating,” wrote the officers of Duke’s Black Student Alliance in an email sent to the state NAACP. The letter from Nana Asante, president of the alliance, challenged the faculty members involved in the research...

A lawyer for three members of Duke University’s 2005-06 men’s lacrosse team has subpoenaed the records of two public-relations companies Duke officials consulted in the course of dealing with false rape allegations a stripper made against the team. Durham attorney Bob Ekstrand has told federal judges information from the two firms, Burson-Marsteller and Edelman, is important to his clients’ civil-rights lawsuit against Duke because public-relations worries were central to the school’s response in 2006. “Duke’s media strategy drove its decision-making, including its decisions to deprive [players] of the procedural protections it promises to all of its students in connection with...

Crystal Mangum, the former stripper who falsely accused members of the Duke University lacrosse team of sexually assaulting her in 2006, is competent to stand trial on murder charges in the death of her boyfriend, a Durham judge ruled Wednesday. ... Mangum, an African American, accused three white lacrosse players at the prestigious private university of raping her at a house party. But Mangum's story did not hold up under scrutiny, and by April 2007, Roy Cooper, the state attorney general, declared the young men innocent, saying they had been caught up in a "tragic rush to accuse" in a...

An extraordinary legal shouting match has broken out in Durham, N.C., between the county’s beleaguered local district attorney and its senior Superior Court judge, who has chastised the D.A. in open court. In a harshly worded court filing, Durham Dist. Atty. Tracey Cline accused Judge Orlando F. Hudson Jr. of "moral turpitude, dishonesty and corruption" and complained that the judge "harbors animosity" toward her and has engaged in "retaliatory conduct" and "gross misconduct." Court filings are typically written in dry, obtuse legal argot. But Cline’s filing contains unusually accusatory and vituperative language replete with fractured syntax and spelling errors. She...

Duke Energy urges electric car owners to stop using charging stations after fireUpdated: 1:37 pm EST November 9, 2011 CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Duke Energy officials are asking customers who own the company's electric car charging stations to stop using the product after a house fire in Mooresville last month. A representative from the company has confirmed to Channel 9 that an email was sent to about 125 customers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Indiana who have the same type of charging station installed in their homes.

Power of the people? Hundreds voice opposition to rate hikeBy: Mike Conley Published: October 26, 2011 Hundreds of people packed the main courtroom at the McDowell County Courthouse to capacity Tuesday evening to show their strong opposition to Duke Energy’s request for another rate hike. Donna Edwards of Marion was one of those who testified to the N.C. Utilities Commission. “I don’t represent anybody except myself,” she said in her testimony. “We’re making choices in my house about whether or not to buy medications or pay the power bill. I am all for Duke Power making money. That is what...

Okay, you can lift your lower jaw off the floor. I haven’t joined the dark side: My problem isn’t economic but lexical. I do hate capitalism — the term. As you know, in the eyes of many, “capitalism” has become both a four-letter word and the target of such. For example, New York Magazine questioned a group of Wall Street protesters on October 2 and found that 37 percent believed capitalism was “inherently immoral.” If you find this unremarkable for Woodstock-meets-Wall Street rabble, consider a 2009 Rasmussen poll showing that “only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than...

Fr. Matthew Muñoz Rome, Italy, Oct 1, 2011 / 12:29 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- John Wayne, for many, was a Hollywood legend who symbolized true masculinity and American values. To Fr. Matthew Muñoz, though, he was simply “granddaddy.” “When we were little we’d go to his house and we’d simply hang out with granddaddy and we’d play and we’d have fun: a very different image from what most people have of him,”  Fr. Muñoz told CNA on a recent visit to Rome. Fr. Muñoz was 14 years old when his grandfather died of cancer in 1979. In his lifetime, “The...

Recently I wrote an article about women's tendency to support statist candidates. As my emails attest, it was met with quite a positive response. Yet, not surprisingly, there was also a very predictable one: complaints about generalizations. For instance, one respondent wrote that she was tired of the "all men are this and all women are that" tripe. Of course, people only complain about generalizations when they hear one they don't like and, perhaps, are unable to refute. But you can rest assured that they generalize just like anyone else; in fact, generalizations are woven so seamlessly into our thinking...

We have all heard about the sex gap in voting patterns. This is the phenomenon whereby, in every election, women are far more likely to support liberal candidates than men are. For instance, in 1996, Bill Clinton captured 54 percent of the women's vote but only 43 percent of the men's. And in subsequent elections, the male-female gap has been as follows: in 2000, Al Gore, 42-54; in 2004, John Kerry, 41-51; and in 2008, Barack Obama, 49-56. In fact, even in the watershed election of 2010, during which we heard about the rise of the conservative woman, the fairer...

A Durham man who was set free by the state Court of Appeals over "repeated neglect" by Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday against the prosecutor, the police officers who handled his case, and the city of Durham. Frankie Washington alleges that the authorities who put him behind bars for nearly three years acted in "bad faith." The officers and Cline concealed evidence, the lawsuit alleges, and conspired to violate his rights under the state and U.S. constitutions. Cline and the police had a "reckless and callous disregard of public justice in this State," says the...

DURHAM – Durham County District Attorney Tracey Cline and the editor of The News & Observer came to one agreement Wednesday evening – that they would participate in a forum at the N.C. Central University School of Law – but that was the only thing they agreed upon. Cline took out an ad in Sunday’s Herald-Sun to announce she was calling a Town Hall Meeting at the Durham County Courthouse to speak about a series of articles the Raleigh newspaper published about her last week. In the ad, she invited Andrew Curliss, the reporter who wrote the series, to attend....

Heritage Auctions spokesman Donn Pearlman on Tuesday said the auction will include more than 700 personal and professional items, including an eye patch Wayne wore in his Golden Globe-winning performance in "True Grit."

Unfortunately, many Americans have become inured to the trampling of freedom of association. You can work your fingers to the bone starting a business, and the government becomes a partner that contributes nothing but extracts much. It not only shares your profits and regulates you to death, but, more to the point here, dictates whom you must serve and the bases on which you may hire and fire people. And woe betide he who doesn't bow before Leviathan. A recent example of this is the Wildflower Inn, a Vermont B&B. After devout Catholic owners Jim and Mary O'Reilly refused to...

DURHAM – Lawyers in two of Duke-lacrosse-case-spawned lawsuits are due in court Wednesday morning to try to resolve some of their disagreements about how to handle the exchange of depositions and documents. The pre-trial conference is a continuation of a process, guided by a federal magistrate judge, that began earlier this month. Duke University and lawyers for two groups of players are trying among other things to figure out where and how many people should be questioned in the course of gathering evidence on the players’ claims against the school. The players contend that Duke administrators breached confidentiality promises and...

   MEDIA: HALLIBURTON PAID DICK CHENEY TO COMMIT RAPE IN IRAN August 3, 2011A front-page story by James Risen in The New York Times on Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008, reported on a "troubling trend" of sexual assaults committed by American employees of military contractors in Iraq. The centerpiece of his story was Jamie Leigh Jones, who claimed to have been brutally gang-raped in 2005 while working in the Green Zone. (Risen also interviewed other women claiming to have been sexually assaulted in Iraq and -- for journalistic balance -- their attorneys.) Jones famously claimed that days after arriving in Iraq...

RALEIGH, N.C. -- A family squabble over season tickets to Duke men's basketball games has resulted in a legal fight. A woman filed a lawsuit Friday against her sister, her sister's husband and Duke University regarding the transfer of two tickets that once belonged to her father for games at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Katina Dorton is seeking unspecified damages and asking the court to invalidate the "fraudulent transfer" to Gordon and Sophia Caudle that occurred without the knowledge or consent of her father or other family members, according to the complaint.

I have to admit that The News of the World, which just yesterday was the largest circulation newspaper in Britain and, beginning tomorrow, will have ceased to exist, has never been part of my literary diet. I am not entirely sure I have ever actually seen the paper, though I know a juicy story involving alcohol, a prominent journalist, his concerned wife, and the paper, the details of which I will save for my memoirs. . . . In the meantime, the word is that the scandal which put the paper out of business — hacking into the voicemail of...

People often assume that self-described liberals are more supportive of due process than self-described conservatives. That certainly isn’t the case when we talk about the illiberal bureaucrats who run the United States Department of Education. The notion that an adult charged with a felony should be put on trial using the same standard of evidence used for someone who has been issued a parking ticket is absurd. In fact, it is more than absurd. It is offensive to well-established principles of due process and fundamental fairness. Recently, however, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has announced new...

Raleigh, N.C. — An eastern North Carolina lawmaker is standing behind his characterization of the NAACP and its state president as racist. Rep. Stephen LaRoque, R-Lenoir, sent a May 14 e-mail to the NAACP, in response to an announcement from the group about a Greenville news conference to protest budget cuts proposed by Republican lawmakers. The announcement read, in part, "Tea Party extremists seized the Republican Party and declared war on African Americans, poor people and other minorities." "I have no interest in receiving anything from a Racist such as William Barber," LaRoque wrote in his reply, referring to the...

I often wonder that if John Wayne were alive today, what would he think/do/say regarding the current events of the world. Not just the current regime in DC and Congress, but Iraq, Afghanistan etc....

Crystal Mangum, the woman who claimed three Duke lacrosse players raped her five years ago, could soon be facing murder charges after the man she's accused of stabbing has died.

A grand jury has indicted Crystal Mangum in the murder of her boyfriend Reginald Daye. She was accused of stabbing her boyfriend, Reginald Daye, during an argument. Police were dispatched to 3507 Century Oaks Drive at 3:15 a.m. April 3, and found Daye stabbed in the torso. Daye, 46, died last Wednesday at Duke Hospital, police spokeswoman Kammie Michael has said. Mangum, the woman at the center of the Duke University lacrosse scandal five years ago, is in the Durham County jail. She originally faced a charge of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury....

Reginald Daye has died after suffering stab wounds in Durham, North Carolina on April 3. His alleged assailant has been identified as Crystal Mangum. Jesse's girl. Crystal Mangum is the woman who accused members of the Duke Lacrosse team of assaulting her sexually five years ago. KC Johnson began a blog called Durham-in-Wonderland in 2006 to follow this case and has done a superb job with it. A case narrative can be viewed here. The bottom line was that the three Duke Lacrosse team members were falsely accused. Jesse Jackson flew to Mangum's side to defend her as the episode...

BREAKING NEWS: Man that police say was stabbed by Duke University lacrosse scandal accuser has died, medical examiner says.

Durham, N.C. — Family members of a man who was stabbed in his home April 3 say he died Wednesday evening. Crystal Mangum, the Durham woman who falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape in 2006 has been charged with assaulting him. Durham police could not be reached for comment on whether her charges would be upgraded. Mangum, 32, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and was being held in the Durham County jail on a $300,000 bond. Police said Mangum stabbed Reginald Daye, 46, in the torso with...

The woman who accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape five years ago was arrested Sunday, suspected of stabbing her boyfriend, police said. Officers responding to a call early Sunday about a stabbing at an apartment in Durham, North Carolina, found a 46-year-old man who had been stabbed in the torso, police said. He was taken to Duke University Hospital for treatment of serious injuries. Officers later arrested the man's girlfriend, Crystal Mangum, 32, at a nearby apartment. She was charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury, police said.

Durham, NC - Authorities say the woman who falsely claimed she was raped by Duke lacrosse players has been accused of stabbing her boyfriend in the chest at a North Carolina home. Durham police say 32-year-old Crystal Mangum was arrested Sunday morning several hours after the stabbing that seriously injured her 46-year-old boyfriend.

DURHAM (WTVD) -- Police say former Duke lacrosse accuser Crystal Mangum was arrested again overnight. Authorities say Mangum was arrested Saturday night and is being charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to commit robbery and inflicting serious injuries. Mangum is being held at the Durham County Jail with no bond. She will make her first apperance in court on Monday. Police have not released any further information on the arrest. snip

CONCLUSION Having undertaken this comprehensive review of the 41 claims asserted in this case against the various 50 Defendants, the Court concludes that the Motions to Dismiss will be granted in part and denied in part as set out herein. In summary, Counts 1, 2, and 5 will go forward under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for alleged constitutional violations. The claims asserted in Counts 1 and 2 are asserted pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment for unlawful searches and seizures without probable cause based on the Non-Testimonial Order and Search Warrant that...

Duke Energy Corp., whose CEO is leading the fundraising for the Democratic National Convention, is guaranteeing a $10 million line of credit for the event. The credit line from Fifth Third Bank is apparently the first time such an arrangement has been used by any Democratic convention organizers. A Duke spokesman said stockholders, not rate-payers, would be on the line if the convention's host committee defaults. But the head of the committee said it may never have to draw on the money. "It is just security in the event of a cash shortfall," Will Miller, acting executive director of the...

Duchess of York admits Duke arranged for convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to pay off her debts The Duchess of York has admitted that her former husband arranged for a convicted paedophile to pay off her debts.

Many readers will remember the infamous Duke Lacrosse case of five years ago when Durham County District Attorney Michael Nifong falsely charged three lacrosse players from Duke University with rape. What made the case extraordinary, however, were not the charges per se, but the fact that they were transparently false, and yet the mainstream media and the Duke administration and much of its vaunted faculty ignored the evidence to proclaim that they were true. In the end, the case fell apart because Nifong was caught lying, and the accuser, a prostitute named Crystal Mangum couldn’t keep her stories straight. (And...

Published Wed, Feb 23, 2011 04:03 PM Modified Wed, Feb 23, 2011 04:05 PM Duke settles suit over costs of lacrosse scandal DURHAM Duke University has settled a lawsuit against its insurance company over costs associated with the Duke lacrosse scandal. The National Union Fire Insurance Co., an affiliate of insurance giant AIG, and Duke had been wrangling over whether the company should reimburse the university for costs tied to the confidential settlements of lawsuits with three former lacrosse players and the former lacrosse coach. Duke agreed to dismiss the suit, and each party will pay its own attorneys fees....

I was visiting Duke University earlier this week and picked up a poster for a January 12 rally to celebrate the birthdays this month of several "political prisoners" who are called 'freedom fighters" by the rally organizers, the Internationalist Prison Books Collective. A more accurate term would be violent criminals. The venue is a campus bookstore, which apparently remains in business despite its connection to anti-government protests during the alleged reign of a police state. The five supposed victims of oppression are listed as follows, with some additional information not given on the flyer. "William Africa, member of the eco-revolutionary...

In the 1930s, two white prostitutes falsely accused nine black men of gang-rape, in order to avoid facing other police charges. Before the ensuing Scottsboro trials were over, the main accuser, Victoria Price (the second accuser had recanted) was transformed by the white public into a woman of the purest virtue, the epitome of Southern woman; and any challenge to this image was indignantly resisted: (snip) Times change, and the colors are different, but human nature remains the same. Two years out of high school Crystal Mangum claimed to have been once dragged into a bathroom and gang-raped by some...

DURHAM, N.C. -- A woman who authorities said falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape four years ago has been found guilty by a North Carolina jury of misdemeanor child abuse and damaging property.

Officer Testifies at Mangum Trial DURHAM -- When Cpl. John Tyler got to the small Lincoln Street apartment just after midnight in February he was responding to a 911 call placed by a scared 9-year-old girl, he testified Thursday. "Once the telecommunicator heard the screaming, the complainant appeared to be scared and hung up," Tyler said describing the information he had as he entered Crystal Mangum's apartment. Tyler was the second witness to testify Thursday in Mangum's trial, in which she faces multiple felony charges related to the Feb. 17 domestic violence call. The charges include arson, injury to personal...

In the film The Devil's Advocate, Satan poses as a powerful attorney bent on undermining man through the law. When he finally reveals himself to the main character toward the movie's end, he delivers a self-adulatory monologue during which he proudly states, "I'm a fan of man. I'm a humanist. Maybe the last humanist." Speaking of devilish actions, by now most Americans have heard of Clay Duke (no relation!), the gunman who opened fire at a Panama City, Florida school board meeting. We know that he was upset about his wife's dismissal from a district job and that he wanted...

Florida school shooter largely influenced by liberal and socialist beliefs. Clay Duke, the unemployed and apparently bipolar anarchist who shot up a Panama City, Florida, school board on Tuesday openly admired many ideas that are popular among liberals and socialists. While some have alleged that he was really mentally ill (he was actually on his medication, so there goes that excuse for his personal actions right there) or have even tried to blame inanimate objects like the Obama-economy with all its high unemployment for his destructive action, if you look at all the evidence of what shaped Duke’s thinking, it...

DURHAM -- Prosecutor Mark McCullough opened Crystal Mangum’s arson trial today with the names of her three children... “That residence had a fire started in it while they were in it -- by her,” McCullough said, pointing his finger at Mangum. “This case is not complicated.” Defense attorney ...Dexter did not deny the basic facts of the case: That Mangum piled her boyfriend Milton Walker’s clothes in the bathtub and set them on fire, then threatened to stab Walker, all in the presence of two police officers who had gone to the couple’s home after Ariana called 911 to say...

In the name of job creation and clean energy, the Obama administration has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to some of the nation’s biggest polluters and granted them sweeping exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found. Related Stories: ■NEPA Exemptions: The Dirty Dozen List ■Wisconsin Firm Receives Energy Grant Despite Chronic Pollution Problems The administration has awarded more than 179,000 “categorical exclusions” to stimulus projects funded by federal agencies, freeing those projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Coal-burning utilities like Westar Energy...

Joseph B. Cheshire V, who represented former Gov. Mike Easley, is a good lawyer who negotiated a good deal for his client. As accomplished as he is as an attorney, Cheshire might be even better as a showman. Ladies and gentlemen, he put on a heck of a show Tuesday, after his client agreed to a deal that led to his felony conviction. After the hearing, Cheshire met with reporters and criticized at length The News & Observer's coverage of Easley. Easley, he said, had done almost nothing wrong, but The N&O was out to get the former guv'nah and...

(WBEN) - While he takes his pit bull around from campaign event to campaign event, Carl Paladino's dog Duke is attracting attention-- so much so that the campaign is featuring him in an open letter advising the media to engage in more original reporting. From the Paladino campaign, here's the text of a statement released by and attributed to campaign manager Michael Caputo Thursday. Media Colleagues: The Office of Vital Statistics for the City of Buffalo alerted the Paladino family that the New York Times visited City Hall asking to see Duke's dog license. I want to alert the media...

Duke University and the insurance company it sued to recoup some of the settlement costs linked to the Duke lacrosse case hope to settle their differences within the next month. The National Union Fire Insurance Co., an affiliate of insurance giant AIG, and Duke have been wrangling over whether the company should reimburse the university for costs tied to the confidential settlements of lawsuits with three former lacrosse players and the former lacrosse coach. In a court document filed Friday in federal court, Duke and the company acknowledged that settlement talks had been held. "The parties are hopeful that they...

An American college student who published her sexual exploits as a PowerPoint presentation says she regrets any pain the list has caused after it was circulated on the internet. The mock-thesis, titled "An education beyond the classroom: excelling in the realm of horizontal academics", catalogues intimate details about 13 male students the author has slept with, including dirty talk transcripts and their overall rating out of 10. The presentation includes names and photos from Facebook and athletic action shots. Each man — all of them high-profile students — is scored along criteria that include physical attractiveness, penis size and talent...

Crystal Mangum's ex boyfriend went to the Durham County district attorney's office Monday, trying to take responsibility for a February incident that left Mangum charged with arson for allegedly setting a pile of clothes on fire. Milton Walker, the ex-boyfriend, says he set his own clothes on fire and damaged his own house and vehicle. "At that time I wasn't on my medication," Walker wrote in a notarized handwritten note. 'The breakup of my relationship aggravated my symptoms and I acted out on the voices I was hearing." Quantcast Mangum is charged with arson, contributing to the delinquency of a...