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...

DURHAM -- District Attorney Tracey Cline was immediately suspended from office late Friday after a judge found probable cause that she has engaged in ongoing attacks on a Durham judge that are "prejudicial to the administration of justice" and bring her office into disrepute. Superior Court Judge Robert H. Hobgood of Franklin County suspended Cline under a rarely used state law. He ordered a hearing for Feb. 13 to determine whether Cline will be permanently removed from the elected office she has held since 2009. Hobgood was not required to suspend Cline before next month's hearing, but he invoked that...

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...

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...

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...

When a state university is embroiled in one of the most heinous scandals in the history of American higher education—and that’s the plane we’re on now; never mind where this stands among college sports scandals—here is what you do not want to hear about the principals involved, two days after felony indictments are handed down … Athletic director requests and is granted an administrative leave. Former vice president is allowed to return to retirement. Legendary football coach: Issues a statement pleading ignorance to the most serious accusation in which he’s directly involved. School president: Issues a statement of his own...

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....

First of three parts DURHAM - The final witness in the trial of Frankie Washington was his prosecutor, Tracey Cline. Cline had pursued charges against Washington for more than four years, accusing the handyman of burglary, robbery, kidnapping, assault and an attempted sex offense in a frightening West Durham home invasion. At the trial in late February 2007, Cline was in the witness box, an unusual spot for a longtime assistant district attorney. Washington's attorney, preparing for an appeal, wanted to question her about forensic tests on the evidence - a winter hat, a bandana, a pistol-grip shotgun and a...

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...

Complications from a "gaping" stab wound led to the death of a Durham man in April, according to an autopsy report released Friday. Crystal Mangum, 32, the Durham woman who falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape in 2006, is charged with murder in the man's death. Police have said that Reginald Daye, 46,was stabbed with a kitchen knife during an April 3 argument at his apartment, at 3507 Century Oaks Drive. He died 10 days later. According to the autopsy report, the stab wound punctured Daye's left lung and tore through his diaphragm, stomach, colon, left kidney...

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...

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....

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...

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....

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.

Superior Court Judge Abe Jones has declared a mistrial on the felony arson charge in the Crystal Mangum trial. The jury was split 9-3. The jury was unanimous regarding the misdemeanor charges. Mangum was found guilty on three counts of child abuse, one for injury to personal property and one for resisting arrest. During today's proceedings, former Durham city councilwoman and school board member Jackie Wagstaff was jailed for ten days for contempt of court in the Crystal Mangum arson trial. She was charged with contempt after saying "This is ridiculous" while the judge was ordering the jury back into...

Attorneys worked Thursday to keep the Duke lacrosse case out of accuser Crystal Mangum's current criminal troubles. Prosecutor Mark McCullough and defense attorney Mani Dexter agreed that if Mangum takes the stand in her own defense, McCullough will not cross-examine her about false allegations of rape she made against three Duke University athletes four years ago. Mangum faces trial on charges of arson, injury to personal property, contributing to the delinquency of her three children and resisting arrest. Police say she set the clothes of live-in boyfriend Milton Walker afire in a bathtub while the children and two officers were...

They've run off one public defender, been chastised by a new defense attorney and faced a threat of jail time by a judge. But the Friends of Crystal Mangum insist they're on her side, trying to protect her from a corrupt judicial system that they say aims to punish her for accusing three Duke lacrosse players of rape four years ago. Attorney General Roy Cooper concluded there was no rape, and former District Attorney Mike Nifong lost his law license over it, but the Friends believe Mangum's story. Now facing multiple felony charges related to a domestic violence call Feb....

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...

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...

Reade Seligmann is now a first-year law student. He is into his second week of classes at Emory University School of Law. In an e-mail response to my query, Reade says he is excited to be starting what he hopes will be a long and fulfilling career in law. He reports that he already has a heavy assignment load but that he is happy to be an L1. He concludes, "Thanks again for all of your support and and please send my best to all of my friends in the liestoppers crew." *** I am very pleased that this outstanding...

DURHAM (WTVD) -- A judge has ordered former Duke lacrosse accuser Crystal Mangum arrested again. Officials say Mangum violated the terms of her pre-trial release related to the visitation hours with her children. (snip)

DURHAM -- Crystal Gail Mangum is in police custody under $150,000 bond after court officials accused her of violating a condition of a previous pre-trial release agreement. An arrest warrant issued Wednesday charges Mangum with not complying with visitation hours detailed in her release agreement. Mani Dexter, the attorney representing her, is consulting with the district attorney's office with hopes of scheduling a hearing later today. Mangum, the discredited accuser in the Duke lacrosse case, was in court in July, on the day Duke University demolished the house where the 2006 lacrosse team held its infamous party, asking to be...

A blistering report this week identifying how North Carolina's state crime laboratory workers misrepresented blood evidence in dozens of cases over 16 years covered only two of Roy Cooper's years as attorney general. But it's all Cooper's task to clean up the problems at the State Bureau of Investigation lab and overcome questions about its work. The Democrat faces a long road back to restoring trust in the lab that helps state and local law enforcement. The lab will need to regain faith from attorneys and the public, as well as the lawmakers who approve funding for the lab and...

Longtime News & Observer columnist Ruth Sheehan, who has an ear for a story, an eye for detail and a strong sense of justice, is swapping her reporter's notebook for a legal pad. Sheehan's last column for the paper will appear in late August. She will begin classes at the University of North Carolina law school this fall. "There is no better job than being a columnist. None," said Sheehan, 45. But she's ready for a new challenge. Sheehan knew she wanted to be in newspapers from the day, back in 3rd grade, when her teacher told the class to...

BRADENTON — Lacrosse is one of the fastest growing sports in the country, and you don’t have to look any further than local high schools for evidence of that. Lakewood Ranch, Saint Stephen’s and Cardinal Mooney have started lacrosse teams over the past few years. This week, local players have another opportunity to improve their skills at the IMG Lacrosse Academy’s Summer Camp. The featured guest is Team USA head coach Mike Pressler, and the timing couldn’t be better. Team USA just upset tournament favorite Canada on Saturday in the final of the 2010 Federation of International Lacrosse World Championship....

Newsweek commentator David Graham recently declared the Philadelphia Voter Intimidation controversy to be a non-story: “it’s not about a real investigation; it’s about staging an effective piece of political theater that hurts the Obama administration.” He also meandered into the assertion that the ACORN scandal was “minimal” and “discredited.” Graham’s career-long track record of suppressing news (without troubling himself with investigation) follows him way, way back to his college years at Duke University. Why bring up such ancient history? Well, because he graduated from Duke last year, in 2009.

The ill-famed "Duke Lacrosse House" is on its way to the dump. A demolition crew began tearing down the Duke University-owned house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. about 7:30 this morning. By 11:15, it had been reduced to rubble and an excavator was loading the debris into a removal truck. "Tearing it down was no problem," said Richard Davis, superintendent with the O.C. Mitchell construction company handling the job. "Carrying it off is the problem." Quantcast Quantcast The rubble was destined for a private landfill, but Davis did not know where. Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/07/12/577917/duke-lacrosse-house-demolished.html#ixzz0tUWey600

Duke University is demolishing the infamous house where a woman alleged she was raped by members of its lacrosse team. Bulldozers began pulling down the home at 610 North Buchanan Street in the Trinity Park neighborhood Monday morning. As recently as May, Duke said it planned to sell the property - just as Duke has done with several other homes in the area. The university has successfully renovated several homes known as "party houses" and then sold them to owner occupants instead of landlords, who typically rent properties near Duke's East Campus. It has been four years since the house...

With a motion bracelet strapped to her right ankle, Mangum, 31, held a press conference in front of a Savannah Avenue home this morning - where she is on house arrest - to defend herself against a February domestic violence arrest. Mangum was arrested at her Lincoln Street home after police alleged that during an argument with her ex-boyfriend, she set the apartment on fire and tried to kill her now ex-boyfriend while her three young children and two Durham police officers were in the home. “I don’t feel like I’m going to get the justice that I deserve through...

DURHAM (WTVD) -- Linwood Wilson - former investigator to Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong - was arrested at his home by Durham sheriff's deputies Thursday evening. According to court documents, deputies served Wilson with a felony extradition warrant stemming from alleged harassment of his estranged wife in Delaware. The order, coming from a Kent, Delaware magistrate, says the alleged offenses happened between May 12 and Thursday. The documents say Wilson is charged with stalking obscenity. On June 1, Wilson allegedly sent his wife an instant message that said in part, "'til death do we part remember your wedding vows ......

Duke wins in overtime, 6-5

What will it take for the MSM to stop smearing the falsely-accused Duke lacrosse players? Judging by the performance of ESPN's Steve Weissman this morning, legal exoneration is not enough. Introducing an ESPNNEWS item on a lacrosse game between Duke and the University of Virginia, Weissman claimed that three years ago, the Duke team had been involved in "a devastating scandal," and that while the accused players had been exonerated, "the questions remain." View video here.

Tonya Craft Sues Accusers In $25 Million Federal Lawsuit Defendants Include Parents Of Accusers, Investigators posted May 24, 2010 Tonya Craft, who was absolved of all charges of child molestation in a highly-publicized trial at Ringgold, has filed a lawsuit against her accusers in Federal Court in Rome, Ga. The 52-page complaint asks $25 million in damages from each of the defendants. They include parents of the children who brought charges against her, the lead detective in the case, the Catoosa County sheriff and officials who investigated the complaints. Defendants are Sandra Lamb, Sherri and Dewayne Wilson, her former husband...

Durham, N.C. — A Durham woman who falsely accused three Duke University athletes of raping her was released from jail Monday afternoon on charges in an unrelated case. Crystal Mangum was arrested in February and charged with attempted first-degree murder, five counts of arson, assault and battery, communicating threats, three counts of misdemeanor child abuse, injury to personal property, identity theft and resisting a public officer. Police said she assaulted her boyfriend, Milton Walker, set his clothes on fire in a bathtub and threatened to stab him. Bond was initially set at $1 million, but it was subsequently lowered to...

RINGGOLD, Ga. — A jury has said she’s not guilty and the trial that devastated her life is over, but Tonya Craft says she’ll never recover what she’s lost. “There is not a winner. There can be restoration, and there can be awareness for others to not go through this, but there are two birthdays for my daughter that I’ll never get back,” Ms. Craft said Tuesday, fighting back the tears. Two years after she was accused of molesting three girls, Ms. Craft said the first thing she cares about is regaining custody of her two children. Defense attorney Scott...

Before the attempted frame-up of innocent lacrosse players in Durham, lacrosse had a good reputation. It may have been seen as an elite sport (or, more truly, a regionally delineated sport); but it was also seen as honest, fun, exciting, and one of the few “sports” remaining which still concerned itself with “sportsmanship”. Then came the lies and the false accusations, and a university which was more concerned with the immediate PR fallout than with standing behind its falsely-accused students. And since it fit the convenient narrative which was being constructed, lacrosse was also lambasted. In Durham, three lacrosse players...

What's getting slammed now, as it did with the Duke scandal, is the "culture" of lacrosse, as if the moment a boy picks up a lacrosse stick he overnight becomes a raging idiot who is probably prone to violent and abusive behavior. Any right-minded person knows there's no basis for such a broad stroke. Over the years I've encountered some true messes in lacrosse, players with poor conduct and a bad attitude who had no right in that or any other game. But those bad apples can be found in any sport. When the Love murder was made public, and...

Since the current tragedy at the University of Virginia, the media has frequently brought up the Duke lacrosse case, as though the latter had some kind of relevance to the former. Because such associations are likely to be made in the future, let’s get a few facts straight: The Duke lacrosse players did not commit a crime in Durham; they were the victims of a crime (several crimes in fact: false accusations, and much more). Their community rushed to judge them, including preachers, newspapers, politicians, and assumed whatever “truths” were most convenient for their own agendas. The comparisons with Scottsboro...

Duke University has instituted a new "sexual misconduct" policy that can render a student guilty of non-consensual sex simply because he or she is considered "powerful" on campus. The policy claims that "perceived power differentials may create an unintentional atmosphere of coercion." Duke's new policy transforms students of both sexes into unwitting rapists simply because of the "atmosphere" or because one or more students are "intoxicated," no matter the degree. The policy also establishes unfair rules for judging sexual misconduct accusations. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is challenging the policy. "Duke's new sexual misconduct policy could have...

I'll take "History's greatest rip-offs for $200," Alex. The correct question is "What did Mike Pressler just do to Duke University and how much should he be paid?" Pressler, the former Dukelacrosse coach who was forced out after three of his players were falsely accused of sexually assaulting a woman, reached a settlement with the university last week after dropping a lawsuit that he was unlikely to win anyway. Neither side is discussing the terms, but if Duke paid that guy more than $200 to go away, they got taken.